Moving to Santa Monica, CA? Better Quit Smoking Now!

[zappaman]

Smokers: If you're thinking of moving to or within Santa Monica and you plan on renting your new pad, you might want to start stockpiling nicotine patches. Tuesday night, the City Council approved a new law that bans smoking for new tenants in apartments.

Oh, and if you already live in a rented SaMo apartment, you're going to have to "designate their apartments and condominiums smoking or lose the right to light up in their homes at all," according to the Santa Monica Daily Press.

The fact that the Council went with a "more restrictive" ordinance than originally suggested has come as a surprise to many in Santa Monica.

Though the idea is to protect all Santa Monica multi-unit housing dwellers from second hand smoke, some see the ordinance as a way of shaming smokers who opt to declare their current residence "smoking" and have that designation shared with their neighbors. Councilmember Kevin McKeown said making such a designation has a sort of scarlet letter factor: "It is the equivalent to tacking a 'big, yellow S' on a smoker's door," observed McKeown.

http://laist.com/2012/07/11/moving_to_santa_monica_better_quit.php

[TheWraith]

1. Well, that's going to get thrown out by the courts. nt

[robinlynne]

10. I don't think so. it is already against the law to smoke outside in santa monica.

[taught_me_patience]

12. It's against the law to smoke outside in crowded areas like 3rd street promenade

where many people are in close proximity. Just because you are outside doesn't mean that your smoke doesn't create a nuisance to others.

[CreekDog]

15. Belmont, CA did it before this

[movonne]

28. Here in Oregon they have in apt. bldg. with little houses so

you can smoke in them but not in your apts..most of these are fed funded so that might make a difference...

[polichick]

2. On the flip side, it's good business not to let your property get stunk up...

...for future customers.

[Tikki]

3. Great news...much of California is serious about helping smokers quit and..

keeping young people from starting.

Laws and ideas like this help people quit.

Tikki

[progressivebydesign]

9. so true!

In the County I lived in a while back in California, they were one of the first to have a public smoking ban in bars and restaurants and workplaces.. etc. And they found that it resulted in less smokers overall, and a DRASTIC reduction in emergency room visits for heart attacks and breathing issues.

[Fawke Em]

75. No they don't. They just piss people off.

No one is going to quit unless they want to.

[Tikki]

76. I did....just got tired of running off to some secluded spot while....

the rest of my family enjoyed the Zoo, the park, the restaurant, the theater...etc.

California restricted and I just gave up and quit.

As I said...worked on and for me. I am not bitter. I am healthy.

Thank You Californians....7 years smoke free...


Tikki

[Fumesucker]

4. I can see where conservatives get some of their more outlandish ideas about liberals from..

They can see liberals are just as quick as they are to regulate and even ban private behavior, it's really only specifics the two sides disagree on.

Lifelong non smoker here by the way, I tried cigarettes a couple of times when I was a kid and never liked them so I didn't continue.

[TheWraith]

14. For once, we agree on something.

I too am a non-smoker, and in fact I find smoking incredibly irritating--it bothers my ability to breathe being near second hand smoke. Even so, I'm not under the fantasy that that somehow entitles me to regulate it and tell somebody they're not allowed to smoke in their own home.

I'd like someone to tell me, what exactly is the difference between banning someone from smoking in their home, and banning them from having gay sex in their home? Other than it being a matter of who finds the behavior morally objectionable? Or for that matter, how about eating unhealthy foods? Is it legal to ban that?

[CreekDog]

16. What if their smoke enters your home?

I assume this also means you're against any restriction on the volume of music one plays in their apartment.

[TheWraith]

18. Please answer my original question.

If it's okay to ban people from smoking in their apartments, what else is it okay to ban them from doing because the majority thinks it harms the "public good"? Can you ban them from having gay sex? Premarital sex? Eating greasy food?

If you have problems with your neighbors, demanding the government pass a law to ban them from doing stuff is not the answer.

[CreekDog]

19. there is no connection between your health and neighbors having sex

or what kind.

that you would even compare those things in this context is troubling.

[TheWraith]

22. Not everybody agrees, and you didn't answer my question.

Nor have you provided any actual evidence that whether your neighbors smoke has any effect on YOUR health, or that this law was sold as such. This is purely a "stop them for their own good!" law, and if you can do that with anything you think is harmful, where exactly is the limit?

[CreekDog]

40. you're saying second hand smoke isn't harmful?

and why can't you burn wood in your fireplace in many cities?

[former9thward]

23. What about the exhaust from your car?

Entering my home. If you don't think exhaust is harmful then get next to the tailpipe and breath deep. But since it is you then your pollution is ok. Right?

[CreekDog]

24. so you are advocating to close your street to traffic?

hmmm.

[former9thward]

26. I am just pointing out hypocrisy.

hmmm

[CreekDog]

33. are you saying i drive down your street?

do you know me?

also if the pollution from your street is severe enough to cause a problem indoors, are you saying i would oppose dealing with that?

you don't know me at all.

[former9thward]

37. No I don't know you and I'm sure I would not want to.

I don't like people who pick and choose whose lifestyles they want to regulate based on their own lifestyle. You don't smoke so you don't want anyone to smoke. But you drive so you don't care about that pollution. Car pollution is far worse than so-called second hand smoke.

[zappaman]

38. Car pollution is indeed worse than second hand smoke.

http://www.davehitt.com/facts/

[CreekDog]

41. is that a link to the New England Journal of Medicine?

[coalition_unwilling]

45. As a local who has lived in or near Santa Monica for the past 20+ years (and

smoke free for the past two years), I can assure you that many of the Santa Monicans behind this no-smoking ordinance drive the most energy inefficent SUVs on the road. We're talking land yachts, like Escalades, Navigators, Yukons. They have a lot of gall trying to regulate other people's lives while they drive their behemoths two blocks for a half-gallon of milk.

Utter, total hypocrisy.

[Egalitarian Thug]

80. Just living next door in Venice to these assholes was too much.

I found my refuge in the hills. (Shhhhh)

[Douglas Carpenter]

25. I unfortunately agree - Fuck that shit- I believe in freedom not tyranny

even liberal tyranny who are only being tyrants for people's own good. I think government should stay out of people's bedrooms or living rooms for that matter.

[CreekDog]

34. what about rules against burning wood in fireplaces? there are those rules you know

they are designed to protect people on days with heavy pollution.

do you oppose those?

[NutmegYankee]

83. What a weird rule. 10% of my neighbors heat their homes with wood.

Yet another reason I love living in the countryside.

[CreekDog]

86. Weird? No. These are metro areas with pollution problems

That cannot be solved without regulating woodsmoke.

Some fireplaces are the equivalent of open burning.

[Egalitarian Thug]

79. I wish I could argue against this, but you're flat out right.

These are the authoritarian Democrats. Same ugly as their republican counter-parts in a different jersey.

And to think this all started because Carl Reiner's kid couldn't make a profit imposing his stupid rules in his restaurant.

[zappaman]

87. That's a good way of putting it.

But what is the Reiner kid thing you are talking about?

[Egalitarian Thug]

89. Sorry. Rob Reiner started all this over a failed restaurant he opened in the late 80's. n/t

[zappaman]

5. I'm wondering how it affects medical marijuana users...

Can you ban someone for doing something that's legally prescribed?

[roody]

20. Maybe they will have to vaporize mm.

[FrodosPet]

61. No "smoke" to vaping

But definitely a strong smell. Everyone in your building smells it.

Healthier, more kick, but it does get around.

[Zoeisright]

6. Good. More cities need to adopt this law.

Lots of apartment fires started by smokers. Just Google it: I got 34,900,000 results. 26.4% of all residential smoking fires occur in multi-family buildings. Smoking caused 29% of all fire facilities and 42% of residential fire deaths in Minnesota in 2009. One-quarter of victims of smoking-material fire fatalities are not the smoker whose cigarettes started the fire.

http://mnsmokefreehousing.org/tenants/benefits.html

[flamingdem]

7. The stricter the better

since many will break the rule.

[progressivebydesign]

8. Ummm.. 99% of rentals in California are non-smoking.

As a non smoker who made the mistake of buying a home from a former smoker who said that they had eradicated it, but was treated to nicotene running down the walls in a freshly painted bathroom... I'm all for the rules.

I have a relative with asthma. If she rents a place where a smoker lived, even cleaned up, she gets into trouble. That shit never EVER leaves a home.. ever. Unless you're moving there from Missourri or a tobacco state, Everywhere I've been on the West Coast is 99% smoke free. And no, smoking outside doesn't cut it. You bring it indoors in your clothes, and it still stinks.

Better to quit smoking, than to worry about this stuff. Smoking is optional.

[taught_me_patience]

11. Smoking in apartments and condos creates a nuisance for neighbors

Smoke travels through air conditioning ducts, wall cracks, and through open windows. I fully support this law and hope Long Beach implements it next.

[Liberal_in_LA]

17. I don't smoke but I feel sorry for smokers. Their rights are being challenged at every opportunity

[CreekDog]

21. what about an asthmatic who lives near a neighbor who smokes?

or a neighbor who has a guest that smokes?

who has the right to breathe? should the asthmatic stop breathing until they can move into another apartment?

[REP]

27. I'm asthmatic; it's woodsmoke that triggers bad attacks in me

Theres no fucking escape from the smoke from all those fucking fireplaces in the fall and winter. It's nearly unbearable. Yet I deal with it.


I don't expect everybody to accommodate me.

[CreekDog]

32. woodsmoke is prohibited for the most part in your area during high pollution days

also is what you are saying the equivalent of being a smoke sensitive asthmatic and living adjacent to a smoker whose smoke goes into your house through shared ventilation?

my point is that far from having no regulation of fireplace smoke and burning wood in one's house, in fact, there are regulations prohibiting wood burning on certain days where pollution is high and there are even rules about what kind of fireplaces may be built in certain high pollution areas.

maybe you know why, perhaps you don't...and imperfect as the rules are --

like this rule on smoking, those rules on fireplaces? to protect people who breathe, in particular, those with compromised or sensitive respiratory systems.

what is the difference between rules on fireplaces and rules on smoking at home?

[Douglas Carpenter]

48. claimming that someone in another apartment is causing someone a problem because they smoke is

disingenuous.

[CreekDog]

51. you are saying an asthmatic who shares ventilation with a smoker next door has a character defect?

nice.

[Douglas Carpenter]

52. It is not bothering anyone. I'm an astmatic myself. Yes it is a charachter defect - except in the

most unusual circumstances. It is not asthmatics pushing this crazy legislation. It is a the morality police. This is no different than the right-wing fundies getting all worked up over someone in another apartment having sex that offends them. People need to get over trying to bully other people. It is wrong when the right-wing tries to push people around and it is wrong when it is done by so-called liberals faking concern.

[stevenleser]

67. Just because it doesnt bother YOUR asthma doesnt mean anything except to you.

Unless you can cite medical data to say it doesnt bother anyone elses asthma or other breathing conditions, your argument is meaningless except in your isolated case.

[Douglas Carpenter]

72. you're just going to have to give up the idea that it is okay to bully people and push them around

we can't have a free society with a bunch of little tyrants constantly pushing their own little perverse agendas whether from the left or from the right.. There is no evidence that the minute amount of smoke that might work its way into the ventilation system is going to agitate the vast majority of asthmatics. Cats are certainly a far greater antigen for triggering asthmatic attacks than smoking is. Do we ban cats too? But we all know that none of this has anything to with health or even smoking - it is simply the same mentality that gets some right-wingers all worked up up over what private sex lives those two single men sharing a studio must be up to - No, this not about health or even about smoking it is about the sinister side of human nature that drives some people to bully and push other people around and tell them what to do.

[stevenleser]

74. I'm not going to have to do anything. The trend is going my way with smoking.

The people who need to adjust are those whose views are not aligning with that of societies.

[Douglas Carpenter]

82. you can push the American people too far. Look a the Temperance movement. It was VERY popular when

it was convincing millions of Americana to give up drinking, It was popular when it banned the sale of alcohol to children and minors. It was popular when it greatly reduced the number of bars and severely restricted where and when alcohol could be sold. Across the political spectrum from abolitionist to socialist to Christian fundamentalists to women suffragettes it had great popular support. Then they crossed the line into prohibition and now the Temperance movement is only a footnote in history. Outside of some very narrow cultural elitist circles - people will not accept this kind of intrusion into the privacy of their homes and the privacy of their lives. Liberals and progressives will only isolate themselves from mainstream society even more than they already are by pushing authoritarianism. People can accept reasonable restriction. They will not accept tyranny.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

54. I don't know about that

I live in a 100 year old vintage condo building. I have two neighbors on the second floor who smoke. Fortunately for all of us, they MOSTLY smoke outside on the deck as they want to keep their places nice.

When the woman below me DOES smoke inside I can smell it. Even then she will smoke in her kitchen with the back door or widow open and blow it outside.

If she decided to chain-smoke INSIDE we would have major problems. There is now way it wouldn't stink up my house. I would be forced to take it to the condo board or court if necessary.

[taught_me_patience]

103. I can smell neighbor's smoke through the vent system

it stinks and creates a nuisance in my condo that is a health hazard.

[Douglas Carpenter]

104. I wonder if people are not looking for things to annoy them

Until this recent fad of banning smoking absolutely everywhere gained momentum I certainly never once in all years heard anyone complain about the smoke coming from someone else's home. I think we are creating a nation of endless pettiness and endless, endless, nitpicking. Whatever health risk that might possibly come from second hand smoke the minute amount of particles that would move from one apartment to another would be so small that is stretches credulity to view it as a health hazard. My goodness in the mid 70's restaurants didn't even have separate smoking areas. When this was implemented - this should have satisfied most people. But then later on smoking in restaurants or bars became prohibited almost everywhere. Now we are down to the privacy of ones home.

[Egalitarian Thug]

81. I'm horribly allergic to olive trees, can I force you to cut yours down? n/t

[AnOhioan]

13. Bunch of crap....talk about "lets all hate on the evil of the moment" (smoking)

Santa Monica can kiss my ass...after I light on up to commemorate the event.

[Douglas Carpenter]

31. Amen! they can kiss my ass too! fucking elitist assholes!

And I am an asthmatic. I quit cigs a few years ago. But once a day, usually after work I enjoy one cigar and a shot or maybe two shots of bourbon. I would rather die than give that up.

[demwing]

39. I'm trying to figure out if your post is sarcasm

or some other kind of inexplicable thing...

You're asthmatic that would rather die than give up your daily cigar?

Don't worry, your days of having to face such a sacrifice are coming to a close.

[Douglas Carpenter]

49. most asthmatics are not bothered by modest amounts of smoking.. In fact when I smoked cgs myself

It rarely agitated the asthma. Certainly someone down the hall in another apartment or on another floor is not bothering anyone unless it is their busybody choice to be bothered. The same busybodies that would stick their authoritarian noses into other peoples' business on the one issue of smoking will never-ever be satisfied simply becasue they got away with forcing their will in this one area. There is no satisfying the authoritarian mind.

[demwing]

50. The only asthmatic I've ever known well

was my eldest son. He couldn't be in the same room with a smoker, not even one that just put their smoke out. He was the reason I stopped smoking. As he grew up, his asthma left.

Now the guy smokes, no problems with breathing at all.

Except when he runs, or eats, or talks too fast...

[HockeyMom]

29. Single family houses?

That apply too? How about a neighbor's BBQing and all that SMOKE getting into your neighbor's house? Only cigarette smoke applies? How about the awful smells of their COOKING? How far do you want to take this?

Non-smokers, not all smokers WANT to quit. When you are 50, 60, 70 years old, and NOT DEAD YET, do you really think these dumb laws will FORCE people quit?

[Speck Tater]

30. Wanna be able to breath without an oxygen tank? Better quit now.

You think it can't happen to you. Then, suddenly, it does. I sat with my wife and watched her die of lung cancer. Compared to, say, a trip to Disneyland, it was not a great deal of fun for either of us.

Denial and self-deception are all well and good but this shit is real! And you don't want it.

[Fumesucker]

35. I think most of us understand that..

I know I'm wondering where it stops, what's the next thing that's objectively bad for us but some enjoy to be made effectively illegal?

And then what after that?

Are you also good with the HFCS drink size ban in NYC?

I mean I like to motorcycle sometimes and it's objectively far more dangerous than riding in a car, you *don't* want a 75 mph high side, shouldn't it also be made effectively illegal?

[CreekDog]

42. if you pass a law regarding smoking cigarettes, that's where the law stops

[Fumesucker]

43. Really?

So it is your belief that once cigarette smoking is outlawed then there will be no further government intrusion on private consensual behavior?

Because that's certainly not the pattern I'm seeing in the land of the free.

[CreekDog]

44. read what i said to find out what i'm saying.

what i wrote was very clear.

what you are saying is that if one law is passed, it will lead to passage of another one.

well then why have any laws at all then? they just lead to other laws?

the cigarette law applies to what it applies to. it would take another law to pass to cover something that the current law does not.

[Fumesucker]

53. Why bother to vote for Democrats then?

If they are going to pass laws that are as intrusive in their own way as laws Republicans wish to pass?

Which was the point of my original post on this thread, conservatives see liberals ban smoking in private residences and realize that liberals are really no different, they just want to control different things.

Democrats no more care for individual liberty than Republicans do, reading this thread makes that quite clear.

[CreekDog]

59. that's BS and false equivalency

but if you want to give up on all Democrats because of Santa Monica's city council and folks in this thread then i'm pretty sure i can't reason with you.

[Occulus]

102. I remember when this whole topic first appeared on DU2.

IIRC, it was when the first laws were proposed regarding smoking bans outside. We were assured by literally ALL of DU's nannies that laws against smoking in one's residence, be it owned home, rental, or shitty little trailer would never ever be passed.

Surprise. They lied. Through their teeth. And I bet if you go back and look at the posts regarding this topic on DU2, you will very likely find that some of those same people are supporting this law.

People who want to control or prohibit outright the legal behavior of their neighbors always lie about their intentions.

Always.

[CreekDog]

105. i never made that assurance on DU2, quite the opposite

when Belmont, CA passed its ordinance, i defended it.

i'm not against smokers, but i think smoking should be done outside. i don't think it should be done in the vicinity of children --that's just the healthy thing to do.

and you know what? most smokers i know did what i'm supporting before i ever thought of it.

most, but not all.

the problem with smoking in your house when it's an apartment, is that if it's shared ventilation system, smoking in your apartment is like smoking in your neighbor's.

[demwing]

57. Use a motorcycle correctly, it's just a fun ride

use a cigarette correctly, it's poisoning you, and getting you addicted to boot.

Not even a close comparison.

[zappaman]

36. I don't smoke cigarettes.

But I think legislating that you cannot smoke in an apartment is overstepping it a bit.

[stevenleser]

47. I can understand people thinking that way, but see my below post, the alternative isn't fair either.

If you are weighing one set of unfair circumstances with the other, unfortunately many restrictions on smoking are going to seem more fair than the alternative.

[stevenleser]

46. My condolences. Everything I have read indicates it is a long and extremely painful way to die.

It's also extremely expensive in terms of healthcare resources. Even in a single payer system, you eat up a lot of doctors and nurses time, medicine, chemo, radiation, etc., etc. Basically all healthcare delivery systems have groups sharing the premium burden whether those premiums are the kind we have in the US or taxes in a single payer system, so if you are going to indulge in this habit, you are forcing a lot of other people to defray some immense future costs.

When you think about it that way, it's really not fair or right. The rest of us also dont want our chances of lung cancer to go up because a neighbor's second hand smoke finds its way into my apartment. That is also not fair.

I hope smokers take this opportunity to quit, there are patches, electronic cigarettes, and various other mechanisms to support quitting smoking.

[JoeyT]

56. Well, hell, if that's our reasoning then where do I sign up to pick which vices

I want outlawed?

Or better yet, where do all the right wingers get to sign up to get the vices THEY don't like outlawed.

When they start dragging out studies showing that extra and pre-marital sex increases rates of STDs will you agree with them that it isn't fair that we be allowed to have sex with whoever we want because it might inflate their premiums, or does it only apply to vices you aren't a fan of?

[stevenleser]

58. You are comparing having sex to smoking? You really need me to point out the apples to oranges

in that comparison?

[loli phabay]

62. reply

sometimes they are both intermingled kinda fruit salad

[JoeyT]

63. No they're pretty much both apples.

Each is the current demon of a political group. Energy would be cheap, jobs would be plentiful, and the economy would be back on track if we could just stop that sex/smoking, depending on which one is talking.

Be careful what arguments you use to rationalize controlling the behavior of consenting adults, because your opponents may be using it soon.

[stevenleser]

68. Comparing smoking to having sex is ridiculous on its face.

I think most DUers will see that without me needing to make further arguments.

[CreekDog]

70. if that's the case, then why didn't they ban it in single family homes?

huh?

if everyone here is just trying to be a nazi about teh smoking, why would we limit our jackbooted behavior to apartments and multi-family dwellings?

[NutmegYankee]

84. Because it's easier to do it on the poor. nt

[CreekDog]

85. You're just making things up -Santa Monica is expensive!

Yes, even the apartments. Maybe you think it is not upscale. Maybe your image of it is from reeuns of Three's Company.

[NutmegYankee]

90. 30% of the households make 40k or less.

And they don't live in single family homes.

[CreekDog]

91. "According to a 2009 estimate, the median income for a household in the city is $71,095"

where are your numbers from? (mine are from wiki)

[NutmegYankee]

96. You make the same mistake as Republicans for income.

Just because a few people live lavish lives at great cost doesn't mean all do. Plenty of families in NY City live under 50K, yet we are told 250K isn't a lot of money.

As for numbers - http://www.city-data.com/income/income-Santa-Monica-California.html

[CreekDog]

92. so you're saying the law is designed to hurt poor children, preventing them from smoking...

because they are the ones mostly likely to be in poverty, then in a multi family dwelling and to suffer from asthma.

apparently, you think is it so harm the poor, of whom, children are overrepresented among the poor.

[NutmegYankee]

97. It's designed to make the poor miserable.

The wealthy can live in single homes without Nanny state intrusions.

And where have I seen For The Children™. Oh right. That was the favorite argument of the religious right during my time in the Southeast. Yep. Ban Masturbation - For The Children™. Now there's a group who respects privacy rights...

[CreekDog]

98. so smoking regulations are bad for kids?

whatever.

i guess i'm not arguing with a scientist nor someone who respects science.

[NutmegYankee]

99. You mistake Authoritarians for Scientists

And at the end of the day, it is Authoritarian act to tell a person what they may do in their own home.

[CreekDog]

100. oh, now smoking regulations are authoritarian?

i hate to think what you think of the EPA.

[NutmegYankee]

101. There is a difference between regulation of industry and this.

This (smoking ban) is directly telling some people what to do within their own homes. You might have a case if the ban applied to everyone, but because those wealthy enough to live in a single family home are exempt, it is inherently unfair.

If you sign a lease (contract) forbidding smoking, then you have agree to that rule. You know upfront what is asked of you. But to slap that rule onto everyone is disgusting authoritarianism. Especially Condos - If you are going to buy a home, you should be able to live as you choose.

I'm glad you do not live out here in the countryside. You wouldn't last a month.

[tpsbmam]

77. Here are some comparisons for you......

Obesity costs us a FORTUNE as a country -- it's documented. So, let's start regulating the food people deemed obese are allowed to buy.....guess we have to find a way of labeling them so they wear a visible label alerting anyone who sells food not to sell them anything but fruits, vegetables, fish, etc. And we'll have to come up with penalties for those vendors who break that law, as well as for the obese folks. Ooooooo, we could find a whole new population for private prisons! Yippee!

Alcoholism. Big toll on health care. We'll have to ban their access to liquor. Maybe a big A on their chests alerting anyone who sells alcohol that they're not allowed to buy it. And again, penalties for all who break that law.

And on and on.

There are MANY behaviors that cost the healthcare system. MANY. But you're going to single out smokers because you don't like smoking?

[stevenleser]

78. Nope, I single out smoking because smoking harms and kills other people who didnt chose to smoke. nt

[kurtzapril4]

93. Well, neither sex or smoking

are necessary for human life. One can live a long lifetime w/o sex...and one can live a long, long time with smoking. My dad died on his 95th birthday. He smoked since he was 9, gave it up at 93. My mom died at 89. She had smoked since she was 13. Neither of them died of cancer, emphysema, COPD, or any kind of other smoking related illnesses....they died of old age. My mother did a cart-wheel in her front yard on her 88th birthday, an annual event. Someone hit her with a car a couple of months after that, and she never recovered. My mom and dad just plumb wore out. Smoking had nothing to do with their demises.

I GUESS they could have lived into their 110's if they hadn't smoked......

[stevenleser]

95. Are you sure you dont want to rethink your first sentence? nt

[Taverner]

55. Soon there will be a prohibition on nicotine

And it will be black market - it already kinda is...

[underseasurveyor]

60. All I know,

the best thing I ever did was after 35+ years I gave up that nasty, dirty, will-kill-you habit almost 5 years ago. As far as I'm concerned cigarettes and cigars should be banned, period.

[Comrade Grumpy]

71. So you smoked for 35 years and then you quit. And now you want to ban them?

[underseasurveyor]

73. I wanted them banned long before I quit.

So then I'd have no choice but to quit. Quitting on my own was better but if they banned cigarettes before I stopped smoking? Yea I really kept hoping for that.

[kurtzapril4]

94. Self-righteous ex-smoker.

Nothing more need be said.

[Glitterati]

64. Next obesity! Then aging!

Once they finish with all these nasty smokers, those ugly, fat people will be kicked out of this perfect little town, and when they are rid of all the FATTIES, then they'll start on old people.

Pretty soon, only those beautiful, non-smoking, healthy, skinny, young people will be allowed to live there.

[kctim]

65. Nothing quite like

stripping others of their individual rights and freedoms, to make yourself feel all good inside.

All the little dicatators who support these fascist laws should mind their own damn business and stop dictating how others live their own lives.

[CreekDog]

69. that's the libertarian position i take it

[meaculpa2011]

66. Whenever my next door neighbor...

cooks cabbage, it sinks up my house. And she makes it four times a week. I support the cabbage ban.

BTW: She also has a fireplace.

[zappaman]

88. How soon will the "you have to change your underwear every day" ordinance be going into effect? n/t