# what if I posted "No Smoking" signs outside a cafe I don't own? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 7, 2008, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-posted-no-smoking-signs-outside-a-cafe-i-dont-own/455629 "2008-07-07T23:46:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Flipshod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f19dbf/32.png) [@Flipshod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flipshod)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2008, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-posted-no-smoking-signs-outside-a-cafe-i-dont-own/455629/41 "2008-07-10T15:00:29Z")
**what if I posted “No Smoking” signs outside a cafe I don’t own?** IMHO, you’d be a busybody who had committed a minor act of vandalism ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2008, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-posted-no-smoking-signs-outside-a-cafe-i-dont-own/455629/42 "2008-07-10T19:02:35Z")
[QUOTE=DianaG] Has it occured to you that maybe we don’t care about your feelings because your feelings seem to be “I don’t like it, so anyone who does it is clearly a bad person.”? [/quote] The majority of anti-smoking people don’t have any opinion on whether smokers are good or bad as people. Our attitude is “I don’t like it, so don’t do it where I am or anywhere I’m likely to want to go.” > [@](#): > > The day someone can explain to me why having a cigarette \*outside, where no one is forced to stand near you \* should be illegal, in a way that doesn’t resort to whining or hysterics, then maybe I’ll care. If you read the OP carefully, the issue is that the smoke is wafting into the cafe, which is supposed to be non-smoking. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ea5d25/32.png) [@Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Scrappy_Hero_Pup)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2008, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-posted-no-smoking-signs-outside-a-cafe-i-dont-own/455629/43 "2008-07-10T22:18:48Z")
[QUOTE= ascenray] Our attitude is “I don’t like it, so don’t do it where I am or anywhere I’m likely to want to go.” [/QUOTE] To which my attitude as a smoker (and even now as having been off cigarettes for years) is “If you don’t like it, don’t go where it’s permitted and don’t expect that I’ll put mine out on your say-so alone.” If someone is smoking in a non-smoking area, he shouldn’t be, and he should put it out when told. If one is smoking in a smoking-permitted area, and is told to put it out, the answer should be “fuck off.” If one is smoking in a smoking-permitted area, and is asked to put it out, the answer should be “no,” but I appreciate that some people’s sense of decorum might cause them to wish to accommodate the interloper. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2008, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-posted-no-smoking-signs-outside-a-cafe-i-dont-own/455629/44 "2008-07-10T23:28:33Z")
[QUOTE=Happy Scrappy Hero Pup] If one is smoking in a smoking-permitted area, and is asked to put it out, the answer should be “no,” but I appreciate that some people’s sense of decorum might cause them to wish to accommodate the interloper. [/QUOTE] Or in other words: “if it’s not illegal, it’s not annoying.” Gotcha. ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-posted-no-smoking-signs-outside-a-cafe-i-dont-own/455629/45 "2008-07-11T01:08:04Z")
[QUOTE=Princhester] Or in other words: “if it’s not illegal, it’s not annoying.” [/QUOTE] It’s this attitude that has led to the backlash against smokers. As a group, they are some of the most inconsiderate and selfish people around. “I need to indulge my addiction whether or not it makes things unpleasant for everyone around me.” ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-posted-no-smoking-signs-outside-a-cafe-i-dont-own/455629/46 "2008-07-11T01:16:08Z")
[QUOTE=Yookeroo] It’s this attitude that has led to the backlash against smokers. As a group, they are some of the most inconsiderate and selfish people around. “I need to indulge my addiction whether or not it makes things unpleasant for everyone around me.” [/QUOTE] Heh, on a marginally related note, I used to drink coffee a _lot_. A number of my female friends ganged up on me and made me quit for something like two months because it made me very irritable and twitchy. Does nicotine make smokers irritable in the same way that coffee can do to heavy coffee drinkers? Heh, actually, on a even more marginally related note, I used to drink LOTS of coffee and energy drinks. I had one of my sergeants take me aside and tell me to sleep more, drink less caffeine, and drink more water, because I was becoming super twitchy and clumsy. Seems these are not desirable qualities in members of the armed forces. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-posted-no-smoking-signs-outside-a-cafe-i-dont-own/455629/47 "2008-07-11T01:16:55Z")
You know, non-smokers have pretty much circumscribed where smokers can indulge themselves to very small, inconvenient areas. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you push up on those places too and act like I should give two shits about you or your precious lungs. Take a hike and go somewhere else. Selfish? Indeed we are. We zealously guard our matchbook-sized smoking areas because if we don’t you pinheads will take those away, too. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ea5d25/32.png) [@Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Scrappy_Hero_Pup)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-posted-no-smoking-signs-outside-a-cafe-i-dont-own/455629/48 "2008-07-11T01:23:41Z")
[QUOTE= Princhester] Or in other words: “if it’s not illegal, it’s not annoying.” Gotcha. [/QUOTE] Try reading for comprehension next time. “If I am allowed to do it, it’s wrong of you to ask me to stop, although, in certain context-sensitive instances, I might just accommodate you even though I am not required to do so, and even though you would certainly NOT extend me the same courtesy if our situations were reversed.” Get it straight- we know our habit is annoying and perhaps irritating to some. In deference to that, we didn’t put up much of a fight when you forced us from our free-range ways into little pens. But I’ll be damned if, after putting me in a box, you’re going to walk up to my box and make your passive-aggressive little baby cough- and get away with it. This is why smokers don’t like anti-smokers. We have no problem with non-smokers. But people who, like you, are so willing, if not eager, to see malice where none exists, people like you make it hard to be nice. Read the rest of my post, and then you try to tell me that your little snark was in any way appropriate. Smoking-permitted means smoking-permitted. You don’t like it, then go hang out in the 96% of the world that is forbidden to us. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-posted-no-smoking-signs-outside-a-cafe-i-dont-own/455629/49 "2008-07-11T04:35:24Z")
[QUOTE=Happy Scrappy Hero Pup] "If I am allowed to do it, it’s wrong of you to ask me to stop… [/quote] I disagree. In fact, this is stupid and you wouldn’t agree with it in any other context. The law does not circumscribe every single area of annoying human behaviour. This does not mean it is not annoying behaviour, and it does not mean there is of necessity anything wrong with asking someone to stop. Perhaps you should be asked to stop and perhaps you shouldn’t. But the basic underlying premise that “not illegal” equals “necessarily insufficiently obnoxious that it is inappropriate to ask you to stop” is stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-posted-no-smoking-signs-outside-a-cafe-i-dont-own/455629/50 "2008-07-11T05:42:58Z")
So your assertion is that you can camp in the only smoking area available in any given place, and therefore I should be obligated to stop out of consideration for you? In that case, it is absolutely wrong for you to ask me to stop. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-posted-no-smoking-signs-outside-a-cafe-i-dont-own/455629/51 "2008-07-11T06:58:00Z")
[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF] So your assertion is that you can camp in the only smoking area available in any given place, and therefore I should be obligated to stop out of consideration for you? [/QUOTE] No that isn’t my assertion. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ea5d25/32.png) [@Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Scrappy_Hero_Pup)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-posted-no-smoking-signs-outside-a-cafe-i-dont-own/455629/52 "2008-07-11T13:37:05Z")
[QUOTE= Princhester] No that isn’t my assertion. [/QUOTE] Then what IS your assertion? Because that’s what the rest of the thread is talking about. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-posted-no-smoking-signs-outside-a-cafe-i-dont-own/455629/53 "2008-07-11T14:13:08Z")
[QUOTE=Happy Scrappy Hero Pup] Because that’s what the rest of the thread is talking about. [/QUOTE] What the thread was _originally_ about is what to do when an establishment is allowing smoking in a manner that is _prohibited_ by law. The rest of the thread is the usual smoking mess. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ea5d25/32.png) [@Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Scrappy_Hero_Pup)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-posted-no-smoking-signs-outside-a-cafe-i-dont-own/455629/54 "2008-07-11T15:07:09Z")
> [@](#): > > What the thread was originally about is what to do when an establishment is allowing smoking in a manner that is prohibited by law. > > The rest of the thread is the usual smoking mess. Touche. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-posted-no-smoking-signs-outside-a-cafe-i-dont-own/455629/55 "2008-07-11T17:32:32Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Write a letter to the owner. Then to Code Enforcement. Great idea, except that it has already been shown in this thread that the law only applies to government-owned buildings. > [@DianaG](#): > > The day someone can explain to me why having a cigarette outside, where no one is forced to stand near you should be illegal, in a way that doesn’t resort to whining or hysterics, then maybe I’ll care. Heh. You don’t live in California, do you? It’s different out here. Whenever you light up you see men screaming and jumping behind trees, women fainting, and parents gasping and covering up their kids’ eyes. That’s what it seems like, anyway. > [@Princhester](#): > > Or in other words: “if it’s not illegal, it’s not annoying.” When did anyone say that? Loud music can be annoying too, as can rowdy children, gassy people, and all kinds of other things, but we don’t harrass the producers of those things about it. Do I cringe in pain with my hands over my ears and beg kids with speakers to turn them off? Do I storm the legislature and demand that supermarkets be forced to relegate parents with loud children to the 10-by-6-foot Designated Child Area? Do I castigate people who fart in public? No, no, and no, because that would be ridiculous. > [@Airman Doors](#): > > Selfish? Indeed we are. We zealously guard our matchbook-sized smoking areas because if we don’t you pinheads will take those away, too. Amen. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-posted-no-smoking-signs-outside-a-cafe-i-dont-own/455629/56 "2008-07-11T17:39:07Z")
[QUOTE=Hostile Dialect] Heh. You don’t live in California, do you? It’s different out here. Whenever you light up you see men screaming and jumping behind trees, women fainting, and parents gasping and covering up their kids’ eyes. That’s what it seems like, anyway. [/QUOTE] At the very least you get the fake cough. Especially amusing if you haven’t even lit the cigarette yet. ---
**Author:** ![Vihaga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Vihaga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vihaga)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-posted-no-smoking-signs-outside-a-cafe-i-dont-own/455629/57 "2008-07-11T17:44:13Z")
Of course, the best part of this might be that if you post signs and the smoking-friendly owner finds out it was you, you could end up banned from the joint. That way, everyone wins; you don’t have to deal with smoke, and they don’t have to deal with being harassed! ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-posted-no-smoking-signs-outside-a-cafe-i-dont-own/455629/58 "2008-07-11T19:20:02Z")
[QUOTE=Antinor01] At the very least you get the fake cough. Especially amusing if you haven’t even lit the cigarette yet. [/QUOTE] The fake cough makes me want to put my cigarette out on that person’s tongue. I think it’s important to note that people do smellier, more annoying, and certainly more dangerous things than smoking every damned day. Back when you could smoke everywhere, non-smokers had a point about the smelliness and the health risks. That point is long gone. People don’t harass smokers because of the smell, or concern for their health or ours. They do it because society has given them the go-ahead to unleash their most petty, bullying, Us-is-better-than-Them instincts on us. \*Somebody’s \* gotta fill that role, and since separate water fountains have gone by the wayside, and it looks like that Marriage thing is a lost cause, and the \*actual \* dregs of society are likely to \*hurt \* you if you fuck with them, smokers it is. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-posted-no-smoking-signs-outside-a-cafe-i-dont-own/455629/59 "2008-07-11T19:28:46Z")
You poor abused smokers. Life must be rough. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-posted-no-smoking-signs-outside-a-cafe-i-dont-own/455629/60 "2008-07-11T19:31:03Z")
[QUOTE=DianaG] The fake cough makes me want to put my cigarette out on that person’s tongue. [/QUOTE] I experience a _real_ cough every time I come near someone smoking. And then I spend the next 30 minutes worrying that he or she thought I was faking it. Now I’ll also be afraid that the smoker is feeling homicidal when that happens. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-posted-no-smoking-signs-outside-a-cafe-i-dont-own/455629.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-posted-no-smoking-signs-outside-a-cafe-i-dont-own/455629.md?page=4)