People often ask me, ‘Why do you get so worked up about these things?’.
Well, the above is a good reason why I get upset.
We’re going to have so many fucking laws on the books that do nothing but infringe on people rights that we might as well be living in China, from the way things are headed lately.
I mean, what the fuck is happening to people these days?
Seriously, when will it get to a point that people say, “Whoa there! That new law of yours just goes too far.”?
Because I sure don’t see it happening anytime soon, regardless of whether or not this new law affects me.
I can’t find the link now, but San Luis Obispo County in CA has some kind of smoking ordinance which outlaws smoking outdoors. 'course living in CA is like living in a non-smokers/anti-smokers heaven. I recently gave up smoking for the following reasons:
[ul]
[li]health[/li][li]cost[/li][li]restrictive laws[/li][/ul]
Friend of mine attended a wedding in SLO and he and a couple of friends went outside to smoke. A cop came along and told them it was illegal to smoke outside in SLO so they’d best hide somewhere not visible from the street. The cop was a smoker, otherwise probably would have been a fine.
FWIW SLO is a tourist trap, most of which don’t go in for such pettiness, but as I said, this being CA, hey, all bets are off.
Sorry, the should be San Luis Obispo, San Luis Obispo County, CA. The city and the county are named the same, it’s the city not the county that has the ordinance.
When I started reading the Arcata Eye police log, I kind of got confused by certain entries until I realized that smoking outdoors must be illegal there. Inconceivable!
I live in Montgomery County, and I’m not surprised by this. It’s one of the most liberal counties in the country (so liberal, we have a Republican as our Rep in Congress…), and it was one of the first to ban smoking in restaurants. That stood up.
Will this stand up? I think it will. It’s not called the People’s Republic of Maryland for nothing.
I would also like a law that makes it illegal for people with B.O., bad breath, or perfume or cologne I don’t like to come close enough to me where I can smell them. Also, if someone’s cooking something I don’t like and I can smell it, I should be able to have them arrested.
It’s not enough that it’s Practically against the law to smoke anywhere, but now they’re going after people in their own homes?
MrWhy, because you live in an apartment, you have several issues that homeowners do not: You have to listen to other people making noise, having sex, listening to music, you have to smell them cooking cabbage, burning incense, etc.etc.etc.
Are these annoyances (including the smell of tobacco smoke) objectionable? Sure. Will someone make a law against having sex in your apartment? Playing the music too loud? Cooking cabbage? Farting? Maybe in Maryland. Is it called for? under no reasonable circumstances. Ever. If you live in a building where someone’s smoking causes a problem for you, there are plenty of other alternatives to nonsense, BS laws. I can think of several without thinking too hard, but apparently, the legislators of Maryland cannot.
And very few of the other pollution/nuisance laws are reasonable.
The funny thing is, we smokers really do contribute a lot to society.
We die sooner, thus putting less strain on the Social Security System. We are taxed through the nose so our bad habit essentially gives money to the states and federal governments to with as they wish. With a multi billion dollar settlement with the state governments and the federal governments, the tobacco companies are not funding many anti smoking programs in the respective states but the funding (here in Colorado, IIRC) is being used to help low income women with breast cancer and other non-smoking related programs (although they do have a few small programs.) We support an entire industry that keeps certain states with lots of income.
I would think the non-smokers would be glad we smoke.
Oh and BTW, as for someone living in an apartment, I can see that it would be a pain for those non-smokers. However, if a person calls the police for Disturbing the Peace via smoking, that’s pretty lame. The offended neighbor could ask, in a nice way, would you please purchase an air cleaner, your smoke gets into my apartment and I am allergic to smoke. If the offender says “well I can’t afford an air cleaner” tell them that if they didn’t smoke so much they could afford one that would help the rest of the neighbors. Shoot I even have an air cleaner, super heavy duty one that I use a lot in the winter time and I live in a house.
Surely you agree that there must be some limits on doing things that affect others peaceful enjoyment of their home? To exaggerate for effect: I assume that you agree that it would be unreasonable to hold a 3 day outdoor rock music festival in your back yard.
I guess I, you and Montgomery County Council just draw the line at different places.
No 50,000,000 watt car stereos on domestic streets.
Sure, that’s reasonable enough, even if I HAD a stereo like that, it would be far from my intent to play it close to my house. I tend to be pretty considerate of my neighbors, other than parking on my grass from time to time. Oh, yeah, there’s an example: In this thread I commented on how my neighbor called the law on me because I parked my truck on the grass. Read it, Tell me if you think nuisance legislation is reasonable. Apparently, where I live, grass parking is a nuisance. The real issue is, there are myriad different methods of dealing with nuisances, and making laws, in, and of, itself, is the largest nuisance of all.
Yeah, I read that OP when you first posted it. I sympathise with you; I had a similar problem with the lady next door to me - but I didn’t get a fine in the end.
I agree that that law is ridiculous. But I don’t think that that means that all nuisance legislation is unreasonable. But I agree that some of them certainly are.
[sup](How many times can I use “that” in a paragraph?)
I think it needs to be restated that the tobaco settlement cash that was awarded because of the ‘burden’ that us smokers put upon everyone is being used for any and everything that the state govt. sees fit, and it sure aint for smoking related causes. Gee, what about the ‘burden’ we caused?
Also, I do wish there was a magic button I could push to make all of us smokers stop, now, just to see the reaction from the states and the feds. How would they act without us evil smokers paying the taxes? Hell, they’d probably have to close a few states.
As far as Montgomery county is concered, and this is wierd for me, but due to this and a totally non related issue here in central Ohio, I find myself saying, “ACLU, GO GET 'EM!”
My feeling is that the line should be crossed, and a law written, only when all other options have been explored.
Like, asking the smoker if he’ll tone it down. Or open a window. Or talking to the landlord. Or talking to your local renter’s association or whatever other body regulates that sort of thing where you live. If that doesn’t help, try pouring a bucket of piss in Mr. Tobacco’s hair. Maybe just start crapping in a paper bag and igniting it in front of his apartment door. Sooner or later, just by bitching, you can accomplish a lot. All extra laws do is make more legal trouble and annoyance for people, cops, courts, etc.
Racinchikki, there are laws like that here, near Chicago. I’m not saying it’s a bad idea. Anti- smoking legislation just happens to be the latest “fad”, because hey, if you can’t discriminate against blacks, gays, women, orientals, etc.etc.etc., why not pick on smokers? Nobody will even lift a hand to prevent you from abusing a smoker. or, for that matter, a fat person.
As for you, KP235:
Maryland, anyone? LOL!
I agree. All those tax dollars collected from smokers already, and they still need more? Maybe use that tax money to fund safer cigarettes, hmmm? Damn. Now I gotta call my rep and bitch. And I quit smoking months ago!!!
BR:If that doesn’t help, try pouring a bucket of piss in Mr. Tobacco’s hair. Maybe just start crapping in a paper bag and igniting it in front of his apartment door. Sooner or later, just by bitching, you can accomplish a lot. All extra laws do is make more legal trouble and annoyance for people, cops, courts, etc.
So annoying people by pouring piss on them or igniting bags of excrement in front of their apartments is better than annoying them with “legal trouble”? I think there are probably some who’d disagree with you on that.
While I concur that making more laws against things is not a universal solution, anti-nuisance laws actually do work quite well in many cases (pooper-scooper laws, separate smoking sections in restaurants, etc.). Everybody complains about 'em like mad when they’re first promulgated, and bemoans the decline of civilization and the dominance of pettifogging legalism, etc. etc. etc. But once they get used to life with the lowered nuisance level, they start feeling pretty good about the law that mandated it.
As for laws against smoking in one’s own home if it bothers the neighbors: yeah, I’m not sure that that one will stand up on civil-liberties grounds. However, I can see some ways in which it differs from other typical near-neighbor-type nuisances such as cooking smells or perfume:
Secondhand smoke is a significant health hazard for many people, particularly those with allergies or asthma.
Cabbage or incense or fart smells and similar nuisances tend to be comparatively occasional annoyances. I’ll stoically put up with my neighbor’s blasting music for a couple of hours now and then, or burning incense or charring the popcorn on the stove, because hey, every now and then I do something intrusive and annoying too. But most smokers in their homes smoke damn near constantly (more’s the pity for them). If their cigarette smoke is really noticeable in your apartment, it’s going to be there pretty much all the time, which is a lot to ask a non-smoker to put up with in their own purportedly smoke-free home.
Listen: the point is, there are a LOT of alternatives to nuisance laws, and most of them are better. I wasn’t seriously suggesting that anyone pour a bucket of piss on anyone, I’m saying that for someone with a brain, there are a LOT of alternatives to nuisance laws. Damn, I can’t believe anyone might actually take that seriously.
So we should just get used to it, huh? Then everything will be okey-dokey, won’t it? How about when they come for your favorite vice? The government just doesn’t belong in our personal lives, end of question.
And I have yet to see a single piece of significant research about second-hand smoke which definitively proves it’s harmfulness which wasn’t funded, requested, or fudged by anti-smoking causes. Cigarette smoke is an annoying irritant, plain and simple, but AFAIC, the jury is still out on exactly how harmful it is, other than to athsmatics etc. to whom pet dander is equally annoying under the right circumstances.
OBTW, if your apartment is constructed so smells from your neighbors apartment can get in there, this is an incredibly shoddily constructed building. My wife smokes in the garage, and I can’t smell it in the kitchen (and I am an ex-smoker, with a great sense of smell, which is acutely tuned to cigarette smoke). I suggest you move in a big hurry before it collapses around your ears.
Billy “that government governs best which governs least” Rubin
This reminds me of the old ‘my freedom to swing my fist ends where your nose begins’ line.
Actually, it’s false, and that’s where government gets into the picture. If you deliberately or repeatedly swing your fist such that it stops a few inches away from my nose, the government is going to have something to say about the matter. Actually, it already has: IIRC, ‘assault’ is the effective threat of violence, such as in this example; ‘battery’ is when the fist actually hits the nose.
But the point is, the government has intruded into ‘our personal lives’ in this instance for a very simple and direct reason: to protect my personal life from harm caused by your personal life, and vice versa. I’m not going to go about my businesss if you keep swinging your fist near my nose.
What complicates life further is that, IRL, many of the fists and noses are metaphorical, and the damage, while real, is less pronounced or obvious than a bloodied nose. Government isn’t, and can’t, write a law, or even apply case law, to every last situation where one person harms another in some minute manner, but it sure makes life easier when laws covering the more obvious forms of nuisance are codified, simply because they represent an agreement of what the rules are.
For instance, if my neighbor likes mowing the lawn at 4am, and I like sleeping at 4am, then his mowing may cause problems for my sleeping. If we each grouse about the other to our town council, then eventually an ordinance might come out of it, saying that yard machinery shall only be operated between 8am and 8pm. Then he knows when he can run the mower (and the leafblower, and the weedwhacker, etc.), and I know when I can safely catch some shuteye, and so does everyone in town. The point isn’t to fine people (although the recourse does exist); it’s to establish some rules that will allow people to get past a particular class of conflict and get on with their lives.
As far as I can see, such laws make life simpler for all concerned, which was Kimstu’s point. And it illustrates the reality that life is filled with instances where governing less would not be governing better.
Bizarre. It’s just bizarre.
