If You Must Smoke, Please Don't Exhale

New York City would expand its ban on smoking in indoor workplaces to
outdoor venues including public parks and beaches under a proposed law backed by
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council leaders. ... The science is clear: prolonged exposure to secondhand smoke -- whether you’re indoors or out -- hurts your health,” Bloomberg said in remarks prepared for a City Hall news conference. “Today, we’re doing something about it.” Source: Bloomberg

I totally agree. You'll often hear me say that I don't like being forced to work in an environment where smoking is permitted. Dog walking means just that. I'm out in the smokey air all the time. AND, I have to keep an eye out for flying ashes as pedestrians flick their cigarettes and the ash flys back into the dogs faces. AND I have to be careful when I'm taking a break to watch that the dogs don't try to eat discarded cigarette butts that are everywhere in the parks and on the streets. AND we have to watch our step as still smoking butts litter our streets.

That said, I don't agree that this should be a law. Oh how I wish everyone would stop smoking. Its really the best thing for us all. Having a law against smoking outdoors won't work because, you can't ban people from smoking indoors in public spaces and then not provide an outlet for them to exercise their freedom to smoke.

As with so many other quality of life issues, how much simpler and pleasant the city would be if everyone just behaved courteously and with consideration for other, without needing a law to tell them how to behave.

Besides, let's enforce the laws we already have, like the leash law, before we go restricting other behaviors.