My paternal grandmother was a chain-smoker all the years I knew her. What she did was keep an old yogurt container with a lid on it as an ashtray-BUT, she filled it with water, to put her cigarette butts out. Yeah, it sounds gross carrying around a little container of discarded cigarette water, but it was definitely safer.
I believe the brand name is ‘Aladdin,’ because it looks vaguely like a magic lamp. With a long neck. And no handle or spout thing. If you squint.
Anyway, the best thing about one of those is when someone shoves the foil from a new pack in an already-stuffed one and then drops a hot cig in, at which point it starts billowing smoke and smelling like burned filter.
Now, when training cats and dogs, it is a common technique to use a spray bottle full of water to punish bad behavior. It lets the animal know that if such bad behavior continues, the unpleasent stimulus will immediately follow that behavior and so that behavior is curbed, without being cruel or doing damage. Now, these litterers might not be as smart as the cats or dogs, but similar system might work.
I’m imagining an inconspicuous spray bottle hidden in the plant, aimed at roughly face level, that has some kind of remote operation mechanism, such that if you saw someone littering in your plant, you press a button, or squeeze a bulb, and the litterer gets sprayed.
I don’t know how you’d rig a spray bottle to be remote operable, so you might try a speaker to play a loud message like “HEY LADY BY THE PLANT. PICK UP YOUR TRASH YOU DIRTY LITTERER” A low tech, though high bother way could be to set your ringtone to that message, then speed dial yourself when you saw a litterer in action. I say it’s high bother because you’d have to change your ringtone to and from that everyday, unless you wanted to be called out as a litterer whenever you got called, and you’d probably have to either hide or secure the cell phone so the litterer doesn’t steal the phone.
Band name!
The OP should put up a sign: “Please do not smoke within 20 metres* of the entrance to the salon, or when you are having your hair done. The solutions we use can be flammable, and it would be unfortunate if you lost your beautiful new hairstyle to fire.”
Since they seem incapable of realising their effects on other people, emphasise their effects on themselves.
[sub]*Or other appropriate distance.[/sub]
Here’s a solution:
Buy one of these, conceal it in the plant, then sit back and watch the fun.
I have known several Koreans at my job. All intelligent, PhD level educated folks and they all (well except for the woman) smoked. One older gentleman seemed genuinely surprised that so few young people smoked (and this is in NC where it seems way more prevalent than it did in NY) and asked why that was. I wanted to say something about it being a nasty, expensive, health degrading habit but responded in some milder manner.
I don’t know that smokers are any bigger slobs than the public in general although I have seen people throw butts on the ground when a proper receptacle was not five feet away and this is at the fucking EPA! On the other hand I once witnessed a guy at a car wash dump the trash from his car on the ground in front of a trash can. I was tempted to get out of my car, pick it up and throw it back in his open window, but alas did not have the hutzpah.
I agree, this is really annoying. A couple weeks ago I was going to the local tool store and a guy about 20 feet ahead of me did something I just didn’t get. As he came up to the door he took the cigarette he was smoking and threw it about a foot past the metal bucket they had placed there for butts. If I was closer I probably would have said something. When I got to the door I saw why he thought the sidewalk was the right place for the butt. Within two feet of the bucket on the sidwalk were probably 15-20 butts, inside the bucket there were only about 5.
I am a smoker, but I like to think I’m a considerate one. I use the ashtray in my car instead of throwing butts out the window (something that really pisses me off) and if there is not an ashtray outside of the building I’m going into, I’ll knock the cherry off and pocket the butt until I find a suitable place for it.
These are not difficult things to do. I don’t see why others can’t do it as well.
I was out smoking outside of our building and I saw a car pull into the parking lot. Just before she parked, a butt was tossed out of the window. She then got out of her car and walked right past an ashtray on the way to the front door. I pointed it out to her, but she just mumbled something about me minding my business and kept walking. I should have found the butt and put it under her windshield wiper, but I didn’t think of it until just now.
OTOH, non-smokers can really piss me off as well. There’s a store that I go to that has a combo garbage can/ashtray. The ashtray is a shelf off if one side of the can that has sand in it. Every time I go into that store, there is garbage piled up on the ashtray. WHAT THE FUCK!? The garbage can is ATTACHED to the ashtray. Do some people really think that it is a shallow sand lined garbage recepticle?
25 cent per butt refund much like aluminum cans. That is the only solution to this.
I throw mine in the trash can when I’m done. I always tap out the burning part though and make sure it’s totally out first though.
Diosa, I don’t know if this is do-able, but when you see this happen, is it possible to afterwards go to the Salon and actually say something to the person? They really need to be called out on their behavior - and embarrassing them in public ought to do it - and include their discarded cigarette butt - tell them “Here - you dropped this right outside of my office - and I knew you’d want to go find a garbage can or an ashtray.” But I’m a bitch - YMMV. 
Oh, yeah, 'cause, you know, everyone reads signs and acknowledges that it applies to them.
I’ve studied this phenomenon at work and have run a few experiments to test my hypothesis. My findings were that if there is already litter outside the can, the chances of others haphazardly tossing their trash in its general direction, not caring if it actually goes into the can, are demonstrably increased. If all of the litter around the can is picked up, people will concientiously place their litter in the can, stooping to pick up a “miss” if necessary. However, it only takes one individual to interrupt this process, after which most people will go back to “lazy chucking” once they’ve seen evidence of others doing the same.
I call it “Lissa’s Decoy Duck Theory.”* People look for evidence of others’ behavior when deciding on their own.
- The same theory also applies to stores. I first noticed this phenomenon when I was sixteen and working in a general store. When business was slow, our boss would instruct one of us to pull our car around to the customer parking lot. As soon as a car was parked in front of the store as if there were a customer shopping inside, business would pick up again.
What kind of salon is this where people go outside to smoke with dye on their heads? I’m pretty lucky and my hairdresser comes to my house (he’s a friend) but that is just nuts. Is that usual? I wouldn’t be caught dead outside with one of those smocks on and my hair sticking straight up wrapped in foil with dye on it. If I was a salon owner the last thing I’d want would be a bunch of my patrons hanging outside the front of my business smoking with dye on their hair.
And they stand out there talking about bloody twats and cum? That’s gross. It sounds like some kind of prison salon. Why do they even allow smoking in front of the salon? Can’t you call the state or health department because there’s smoking so close to chemicals? It really sounds like a safety issue.
Maybe I’m native but I had no idea that many people even smoked in Calif. anymore. I worked in a lab so maybe people were a little more health conscious, but there were probably three people in the whole lab that smoked and they’d sort of be huddled in the corner and people gave dirty looks. I felt a little sorry for them. Eventually they stopped allowing people to smoke anywhere on the premises, even the parking lot. When they were allowed they seemed to go out of their way to keep the area clean because they knew people weren’t particularly happy about them smoking out there.
Can’t the put a bucket with sand outside by the bench?
That’s brilliant. Now how the hell do we get it implemented?
That’s what I was going to say, or at least go to the salon owner and say something. “Hey, your customers stand in front of our office and smoke and leave their butts all over the ground. Can you ask them to not leave the premises?”
Or put up a “No Smoking” sign near your door? Or get your own ash tray thing? Actually go out there and ask them to cut it out?
Yeah, I agree, they’re pigs, but if no one tells them to stop, they’re going to keep doing it.
Hmm, 20 cigs in a pack X .25 per butt = $5 for a pack worth of butts. Around here you can buy packs for less than that. I’m thinking you’d just have people buying the off-brand cigs, ripping the butts off and cashing them in at a tidy profit. Hell, I’d do the math and figure out where to rip a carton with a band saw to get all the butts at once. A $20, retail, carton of 10 packs would bring $50 in refunds.
Maybe that’s part of your plan, and you intend greedy non-smokers to buy up all the cigs to get the refunds so the actual smokers can’t get any, but I’m thinking your scenario needs a bit more work.
Enjoy,
Steven
I think they mean an extra .25 for each cig, so $5 more for each pack and getting that back like some places do with bottles.
This is exactly what I was thinking! (This crap of smoking right by the door of a business pisses me off to no end–and what about those idiots that don’t actually stub out their butts, but rather just leave them laying their to burn out on their own, infusing the air with their stench? Idiots!)
Donna, how good at plumbing are you? Because I would rig up an “outdoor fire extinguishing system” complete with a dummy smoke alarm. (This could cost very little, and be controlled from your desk, so that if there were non-smoking customers coming in the door, they would be spared). Plus, great hidden camera footage.
Even one cent per butt would dramatically cut back this type of litter. A lower deposit would be more likely to pass since butts are smaller and easier to collect and return than cans or bottles. If we make it too valuable, then you got Kramers from other states trying to return mailtrucks full of butts. Also, the cans and bottle returns would drop off dramatically since those collectors would opt for searching for butts and abandon lugging bags of cans and bottles.
In California, I would like to see this happen in the not too distant future.
Here’s an ordinance from Fairbanks, Alaska. Don’t know if it passed, but it placed the deposit and refund value at 5 cents per butt.
Something similar from Maine. Don’t know what became of it, either.