Ok I’m going to be honest and take take my inevitable licks when I am justly accused of being a boor. I hope you’re not fat, because when fat people tell me to stop smoking, I let them know how disgusting and unhealthy their habits are to me.
If your only real complaint is the smell, I think you might just have to deal with it. Your dislike of the smell produced by tobacco smoke is a preference. I love the way most tobacco smoke smells. On the other hand, I dislike the smell of about 97 percent of perfumes and colognes, and think that about 95 percent of people who wear it wear far too much of it, so much so that it makes me gag and retch, but I can’t really expect random strangers to change this habit purely for my comfort and preferences.
The mere presence of someone that you find unattractive doesn’t impact you physically. Cigarette smoke makes me sick - headaches, dizziness, upset stomach, etc. It makes some people cough or have other adverse reactions. Somebody fat standing near you does not increase your risk of becoming fat. I suppose if someone was standing there sneezing all over your kids with no attempt at covering their mouth and nose you’d be quite justified in moving or asking them to do so.
If the smell of your cigs was just a temporary thing where as soon as I moved away it’s gone then you’d have a point with that one, but it’s not. The smell gets into my clothes quickly and it does not go away until I throw everything into the laundry. If someone was smoking in the car I got a ride to work in, I stink. My clothes stink. People around me smell it and don’t like it and I’ve got no option until I get home. I’m stuck with that odor all day and like I said, it makes me physically ill.
For what it’s worth, I work in a building with a posted “Scentsitivity” policy regarding perfume and cologne and I agree with it.
I thought the real complaint was people smoking in non-smoking areas.
Your complaint about perfume is meaningless. If it is objectionable to you you are welcome to petition for no perfume areas.
I like Tokyo where they actually enforce no smoking areas, walk out of Tokyo station and light up, like magic an officer shows up and demands you put it out.
Pretty much my experience exactly. I don’t mind in the least moving or extinguishing a cigarette even if I’m in a smoking area so long as the person is polite; if they’re a jackass they can hoark up a lung and I’ll keep smoking.
I know we’ve had this discussion on the SDMB dozens of times, but these posts still kill me. You’re seriously saying that someone smoking near you, outside, is really going to cause your clothes to stink until you wash them? I call total B.S. on that one. Unless they’re literally holding the cig right next to your clothes, making sure the smoke really gets in there so there’s no difference between their clothes and yours with respect to the amount of smoke going on them, there’s just no way. It’s likely totally in your head.
And why would you stand that close to a smoker for that long if you’re so sensitive to the smell anyway? Take a couple steps back and problem solved. Shoot, if I was the smoker I’d be more concerned with the weirdo all up on my lap soaking up all my smoke into their clothes than getting in trouble for smoking where I’m not supposed to.
If they come close enough, start spritzing the air with designer impostor perfume. At the very least, they’ll smell like bleach and fake flowers. Or catch fire.
That’s the thing: even when I was a smoker, I would never even think of smoking close enough to another person that my smoke would go all over them and into their clothes or that they’d be able to spritz something at me and have it actually touch me. Of course, I was a majorly self consious smoker.
Agreed. We need to have more respect for the principle of the survival of the fittest. If the scent of Janet from Accounting’s Clinique Happy lays waste to you for the whole day … maybe you weren’t meant to make it to 30 anyhow, princess.
Likewise if you can’t be in the same room as a jar of peanut butter or cannot ride in any moving vehicle except the front seats of a car.
Sort of the point I was going for. I hate that people wear perfume and cologne, but I accept it as an irritant rather than a real harm. Now I’m not challenging smoking in the workplace or a restaurant, but I have a hard time believing that a complete stranger smoking a cigarette outdoors in a public park is really such a huge nuisance, and I suspect the placebo is at work in people who vehemently claim that it leaves them ill and reeking of smoke.
I should have been clearer - I was reacting to whatshisface dismissing any concern over the smell of his cigs. I’m not saying that passing near a smoker leaves me stinking, just that what he thinks is a wonderful aroma can indeed permeate other people’s clothes if they are in close proximity for a relatively short while and leave them smelling his foul aroma for a long time.
And for the record, I don’t tell smokers to put it out when I’m outside (OK, maybe if we’re all stuck in one spot and there’s a No Smoking sign), I just stay upwind.
I think this hits the nail on the head. Back in college the one time I was ever asked to move when I was smoking was when I was near a building. A professor came out and asked me to move cause the smoke was coming into his window. I apologized and moved to a different bench that wasn’t near any windows.
I smoke, but I do it in places that are either designated as smoking areas (often cause there’s an ashtray) or when I’m not around people. But if I’m standing on the smoking patio at a bar and you’re giving me dirty looks cause my smoking bothers you, well too effin bad. They call it a smoking patio for a reason, there are ash trays here for a reason.
It doesn’t stick to me that far off, but smoke can easily be highly irritating 100 feet away or more even in the open; it’s much nastier and more persistent than perfume. You have to get to things like skunks before you get to odors more pernicious; perfume isn’t even close (and perfume makes my throat and nose burn).
Well sometimes I smoke, sometimes I don’t. My experience has been that when asked politely, almost all smokers will put it out or move away, even if they have been negligent in seeing a no smoking sign, or willfully ignoring one, or there are no posting at all. If they don’t, you would be wise to pick up your daughter and leave. Just say, ‘Nevermind, I forgot, we have to go now anyway’. A greater danger than incidental exposure to cigarette smoke would be a cigarette butt left somewhere that your daughter could find and swallow.
If you are complaining about smoking in marked smoking area, and the smokers have been herded there by other restrictions, they’ll be less cooperative, and you shouldn’t have been there with your daughter in the first place. If you were obviously pregnant, or ill, and just needed a place to sit for a while, I’d cut you a break, not sure about everyone else.
But outside of a designated smoking area, if they are uncooperative or rude, and you see me around, come get me. I’ll find a way to resolve the situation. I’m good at that. Unless its me doing the smoking. If I’m being that big of an asshole, something really bad is happening. On the other hand, if you approach me with a sneer, and your request makes it clear that you think I am a piece of crap, I may blow smoke right in your face (but not your daughter’s).
BTW, do you wear perfume or other heavily scented substances in close quarters with other people? Do use fail to use turn signals? Do you get in the express line with too many items? If so, please don’t do that anymore.
Um, speaking as a Portland smoker, I have to chime in here. ONE, I NEVER knowingly smoke in areas designated as no-smoking areas (which is damn near EVERY-FUCKING -WHERE lately…attended a literacy benefit concert last yr. and stepped outside of the “Courthouse Square” area (a “no smoking” OUTDOOR area), to have a few puffs and a cop came by and told me and the other smokers, far removed from everyone else, we couldn’t do that there, so we went and stood in the middle of the STREET! Yep, THAT was ok. Give me a FUCKING BREAK!:rolleyes:) I ride the MAX daily…NEVER smoke within the prohibited areas.
On my campus, they have like, 2 areas designated as “smoking” and everywhere else is “no smoking…nearest smoking area is…like 6 blocks away” Yeah, right. I. like most, stand on the curb near the trash can and smoke anyway. (as the cars and busses go by, spewing exhaust…yet I /we get the dirty looks)
Reminds me of an incident from a few yrs back…I was sitting in the designated smoking area at a local mall. (a bench between the entrance and the covered parking area). A woman walked by, FROM the parking area, which was RIFE with exhaust fumes, to the point that I, evil smoker that I am, found it offensive and resented the fact that I was not allowed to step a few feet away into the fresh, flowing air, to enjoy my smoke. ANYWAY, said BITCH passed by and felt compelled by her self-righteousness to comment, “Oh, GREAT, now I have to GET CANCER as I enter the mall!” Did she not SEE the irony or did she just think no one else would? I wonder.
Same way a former co-worker who was pregnant complained loudly about people on the downtown sidewalks smoking as we walked through low-lying, accumulated clouds of exhaust fumes she ignored (but which were what bothered ME). Whatever. Public smokers are a convenient target, I guess. If we attacked DRIVERS in the same way, well, that might just prove a bit Inconvenient.
As a 16 yr vegetarian, I am offended by the fumes from cooking meat. But I deal with it. I don’t demand everyone refrain from meat cooking/eating. But rather ironic to be seated in the non-smoking area of a restaurant only to be assaulted with the second-hand smoke from the other table’s fajita platter, delivered in a cloud of beefy smoke that pollutes the whole building. Hey, man, I don’t WANT those carcinogenic vapors! And the odor makes me sick!
I GET that the stench of tobacco smoke Icks some out. The stench of the meat department at the grocery store (blood and rotting flesh, lovely…I hold my nose) and co-workers or classmates who scarf down their meat-laden meal next to me…EWWWW!
The aroma of the bad habits/choices of others constantly imposes on me. The aroma of your cook-out sickens me. I have to close my windows on hot days to avoid the lighter fluid and burning dead flesh fumes. Thanks.
And I have been a non-smoker…yeah, it STINKS! Much in the way MEAT does to a vegetarian. Hey, I vote that we ban all public consumption of meat.
P.S. And YES, perfumes/synthethic “fresheners” give me an all day headache! Stick to the essential oils and remember, “a little dab 'el do you!” Cut it the fuck OUT! (IME, only Chanel #5 and Laugerfeld fail to aggrivate my head.)
I am a considerate smoker, as are most I know (aside from homeless mental patients who are not considerate in any way) and would never DREAM of imposing my second-hand smoke on anyone…I go and stand far away, downwind, take a few puffs, and politely dispose of my residues. (I smoke American Spirits and take a few hits, put it out, and finish later…hardly ever finish a whole one at one time. A pack lasts me more than a week.)
Never smoke inside or within 25 feet of the damn doorways:rolleyes: OR intentionally smoke in front of children other than my own. I was a teacher for 20 yrs AND a non-smoker for quite a few, and I GET IT, ok? I would no more expose my bad habit to your child than I would my private parts. Unfortunately, my own kids do witness it, but my take is, “If you can’t set a good example, at least serve as a terrible warning!” I seriously doubt either will ever take up smoking.
Yes, I admit it, I AM an addict. As a widow and hence single parent of 2, FT returning college student, and generally stressed out most of the time, yes, I SMOKE. It helps. I will quit when I can. In the meantime, I resent being cast as some evil pariah.
And I NEVER toss butts down…I toss them in the trash receptical OR stick them in my pocket or backpack and dispose of them later, thank you very fucking MUCH! :mad: (just tired of this stereotype…I hear it repeated constantly, but seldom if ever SEE it happening:dubious: As always, there are dicks who DO, but they are not representative of MOST smokers)
To the OP, I have to ask, WHY are you so terrified that your precious one of the virgin lungs might catch a whiff of tobacco smoke? OR SEE someone smoking? Do you not realize that the MUCH greater threat is the ambient air pollution from all the passing cars (including the one you likely drove her to the park IN) and the power plants that fuel the computer you are using to post, etc…?
Yep. Turns out such uncontrolled particulate pollution is responsible for, according to one recent U.S. study, TEN TIMES the heart/lung disease previously assumed. Such a figure is in line with the cumulative research as well.
…Gee, guess they might need to re-figure their numbers on such illnesses and deaths which have previously been blamed on SMOKING, huh?
When my husband of 23 years died a few yrs ago of severe lung disease, I was interrogated repeatedly about his smoking habits, and the final assumption on the death report was, “Did smoking contribute to this death? Probably”:rolleyes:
Um, HELLO! As I told everyone, he was a rare, extremely moderate smoker (of cannabis, medicinal and recreational, and tobacco). I smoked and always have more than HE ever did. He was a 1-2 cigs and 3-4 hits off a bong a day guy for decades. I smoked/smoke outside…any second-hand smoke he got was from my cooking.
Seriously.
He had a genetic condition (Marfans) which involves the connective tissues, including the lungs, AND he worked as a silkscreen printer, metal etcher for decades and was exposed to countless toxins (well, he made a long list a few yrs before his death, so not “countless”, but a LOT!) He was on full disability through Social Security for almost 2 yrs before he died…uncontested, was approved the first time, which is almost unheard of, but the facts don’t lie.
THAT was what fucking killed him, that and being born and raised in Pasadena Texas, the petrochemical refining/pollution capital of the planet…I swear, everyone I KNOW there has or has had some form of cancer and I have SEEN the insurance company maps, bright red blotch over the top of Pasadena/Houston.:smack:
But they just had to try their hardest to blame it on “SMOKING”, and he went down in history as a “probably”, which means his death will be counted as a “smoking related death” when the facts simply do not support that conclusion.
Hey, I am down with the “let’s all get healthy and discourage bad habits” thing, to a point. And that point is when YOUR “rights” start to impose on MY “rights”. If I am standing in a deserted park or 7 feet away from you on a windy street, my tiny puffs going away from you, STFU, ok? It’s legal. You may not LIKE it, but this is the fact. Be more concerned about what is actually posing a threat than me and my few puffs of tobacco smoke. Like all those cars going right past you, exhaling THEIR second-hand smoke. Talk about a distraction issue. :smack:
There is no non-confrontational ways of asking someone to refrain from behaving a certain way. Asking them to do so is confrontational no matter how polite you happen to be about it. That certainly doesn’t make asking wrong but it’s a confrontation of sorts.
Also…
What do you mean by a “softly worded” sign? Does the sign not directly prohibit smoking at the park or something?
OK, to the OP (sorry, got off on a rant there…I’m easily irritated right now:p)
In case it wasn’t clear from my post, GET OVER IT. Move away from the offending individual (maybe closer to the street and the exhaust fumes:confused:) and tell your kid later that smoking is BAD thing.
Keep your self-righteousness to yourself, or, if the offender is truly egregious, just be polite and ask nicely that she/he not smoke around your kid. Most of us are really decent people (and we resent the hell out of being cast as evil villians:eek:)
Exhaust fumes aren’t nearly as unpleasant. As for what I do; if possible I hold my breath and walk away. I don’t want to go near them long enough to ask them to stop, even if I thought they would.
Yeah, right. I. like most, stand on the curb near the trash can and smoke anyway. (as the cars and busses go by, spewing exhaust…yet I /we get the dirty looks)
