The Secret Shame of the Furtive Smoker, Belmont Edition

Jacob Sullum | September 17, 2007

The city of Belmont, California, which has been considering an ordinance that would make Clean Air Calabasas look like a smoke-filled bar (remember those?), gave initial approval to the measure last week. The law—which seems to be the most far-reaching smoking ban in the country, covering private residences as well as "public places"—will take effect after the city council votes on it a second time later this month.

The ordinance cites the dangers that secondhand smoke allegedly poses to bystanders, including its magical ability to do the same cardiovasacular damage to a nonsmoker in a half-hour that a smoker suffers after decades of directly inhaling tobacco combustion products. The legislation treats all property as "public" and all secondhand smoke exposure as "nonconsensual," even when people consent to it—as they do, for example, when they choose to enter a bar where the owner has decided to permit smoking. But the ban, like the one Calabasas passed last year, is also officially aimed at "reducing the potential for children to wrongly associate smoking and tobacco with a healthy lifestyle" and at "promoting the family atmosphere of the City's public places." 

In light of these ambitious goals, it's not surprising that Belmont's ban has a broad sweep. In fact, it's easier to list the places in Belmont where smoking will be permitted than to list the places where it will be prohibited. Here are the exceptions:

1) private residences that do not share any ceilings or walls with other private residences

2) outdoor smoking areas on the property of apartment or condominium buildings (when landlords choose to establish them), subject to various size and location constraints 

3) up to 10 percent of hotel rooms

4) automobiles (which some ban advocates wanted to cover)

5) streets and sidewalks, unless they are "outdoor workplaces" such as construction sites or the patios of bars or restaurants; the sites of city-sponsored events such as parades or fairs; "service areas" such as bus stops and ATM, taxi, or ticket lines; or located within 20 feet of an area where smoking is prohibited

6) tobacconists, as long as minors are barred from the premises

7) on theater stages "if smoking is an integral part of the story" 

Smoking will be banned pretty much everywhere else, including outdoor seating areas of bars and restaurants (where it's still allowed under state law), other "public places" (defined to include "any place, public or private, open to members of the general public"), and the homes of smokers, if they are unlucky enough to live in apartments or condominiums. That last detail is what allows Belmont to out-Calabasas Calabasas, especially since Belmont's ban, like the one in Calabasas, will in practice cover nearly all of the city's outdoor spaces. The staff report on the ordinance notes that the 20-foot buffer zone, for example, "would have the practical effect of prohibiting smoking anywhere on some downtown streets and sidewalks."

City officials emphasize that citations and fines for smoking in one's own home will be "complaint-driven," so that apartment-dwelling smokers will still be able to sneak a puff here and there as long as no one notices (or as long as those who notice do not care). Although such furtive smoking will still be considered a "public nuisance," it will go unpunished. This legal approach opens up an opportunity for small-time shakedowns by smokers' neighbors, who will be able to demand payment for their silence, as long as they ask for less than the fine, which starts at $100 but can hit $1,000 if the city brings a civil action. I'd say tobacco smokers in Belmont will soon know the anxiety felt by pot smokers, except that marijuana use is exempt from the city's ban, as long as it's "for medical purposes."

A PDF of the staff report on Belmont's smoking ban, including the latest text and an earlier version, is available here.

Comments

|9.17.07 @ 6:58PM|#

The technocracy strikes again.

Nephilium|9.17.07 @ 6:59PM|#

Welcome to the new prohibition.

I'm willing to place odds that after smoking is banned completely, then the targets move over to alcohol. We'll start by banning it just on airplane flights that don't leave the country. You really don't need a drink for just a three hour flight, do you? After that, we need to protect families, so restaurants will have to get rid of the booze, and we can take out the airport bars at the same time.

Now, some of the bars in the area serve food, so we'll class them as restaurants, and make them get rid of the devil rum.

If you have children in your house, get that booze out of there, move it into a storage locker somewhere (this part is already suggested by some). Then we'll make sure that children can't see booze, so all stores that sell alcohol will have to ban everyone under the age of 21, and cover all windows.

Eventually, everyone will be safe from the horrors of tobacco and alcohol.

Fscking prohibitionists.

Nephilium

Edward|9.17.07 @ 7:17PM|#

Ah, but lots of people will still be fat. That will bug the hell out of the prohibitionists.

|9.17.07 @ 7:23PM|#

Just call it the Helen Lovejoyification of America.

|9.17.07 @ 7:28PM|#

"reducing the potential for children to wrongly associate smoking and tobacco with a healthy lifestyle"

Maybe the children in Belmont are incredibly stupid. How else can you explain that they will, even potentially, "associate smoking and tobacco with a healthy lifestyle"?

|9.17.07 @ 7:35PM|#

For those that don't know, Belmont is a very affluent neighborhood in the hills on the San Fransisco Peninsula. But it shouldn't be surprising to know that this ban focuses on the poor. Wealthy people live in houses, poor people tend to live in apartments. Guess which type of residence you can't smoke in?

|9.17.07 @ 7:43PM|#

Why don't they just declare that tobacco use is "conducive to demonic possession" and get it over with.

|9.17.07 @ 7:48PM|#

1) private residences that do not share any ceilings or walls with other private residences

Is secondhand smoke passing through walls and ceilings these days? Shouldn't we start weaponizing this stuff?

Mr. Spock|9.17.07 @ 7:57PM|#

We could ban smoking completely and add money to our Taliban support program.

Nasikabatrachus|9.17.07 @ 7:57PM|#

Is secondhand smoke passing through walls and ceilings these days? Shouldn't we start weaponizing this stuff?

If the commercials I see are to be believed, they're selling them in gun & ammo shops these days.

JBinMO|9.17.07 @ 8:00PM|#

I am todays purest form of evil, a smoker that works at a mortgage company.

|9.17.07 @ 8:13PM|#

Why don't they just declare that tobacco use is "conducive to demonic possession" and get it over with.

Because it's California. If they tried to outlaw something because it was linked to Satanism, people would be up in arms. But these people are just smokers.

|9.17.07 @ 8:32PM|#

Nephilium

Happily, it's easier to make your own booze than your own cigarettes.

Nasikabatrachus|9.17.07 @ 8:53PM|#

A little inoculation for you goids:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9ySCcnoo3c

Nephilium|9.17.07 @ 9:23PM|#

JBinMO: I beat you for evil... I'm a smoker, a beer geek, a whiskey geek, and I work for a petroleum company that's attempting to centralize certain business aspects.

Matthew: Unfortunately, at the present, I live in an apartment. I can see the landlady getting scared when there's a bubbling and steaming container in the basement. You should have seen the looks I got when I had to take backup tapes home while we were switching offsite storage providers. Pasty white guy with a long ponytail, wearing a trenchcoat, carrying a red plastic container with a lock on it...

I am however waiting for the day when I'll have to lie that my cigarettes are joints in order to be able to smoke indoors again...

Nephilium

Ray G|9.17.07 @ 9:24PM|#

on theater stages "if smoking is an integral part of the story"

Isn't the same as admitting that casual contact with second hand smoke isn't really dangerous at all? Or are they very, very serious about their live drama?

Morgan|9.17.07 @ 10:24PM|#

I have a hankering to come after pets in the city next. The pet dander, the defecation, and the risk of injury, and best of all probably less than 50% of people in town have them, so why wouldn't we try to stop that which is annoying to us?

After that it's coffee fumes, fajita smoke, and microwave popcorn (that one's already started).

|9.17.07 @ 10:26PM|#

This law has less to do with smoking and more to do with further government incroachment on the property rights of individuals & business owners. All in the name of public health & safety.

|9.17.07 @ 11:10PM|#

Matthew, it's very easy to make your own cigarettes. It takes around an hour to make a carton.

IF Belmont passes this ordinance only the elite in town will be able to smoke in their single-family homes. How's that for snobbery?

Maybe the homeowners could start 'bring a renter home Monday's' so the renters can smoke inside.

Paul|9.17.07 @ 11:20PM|#

The legislation treats all property as "public"

It is public. It's government's world, we're just living in it.

Paul|9.17.07 @ 11:22PM|#

7) on theater stages "if smoking is an integral part of the story"

Hmm, seems like we have an inroad for some good old artistic agitation and civil disobedience.

Paul|9.17.07 @ 11:24PM|#

I'd say tobacco smokers in Belmont will soon know the anxiety felt by pot smokers, except that marijuana use is exempt from the city's ban, as long as it's "for medical purposes."

Bulleffingshit. Marijuana will be banned along with cigarettes. I'll donate money to any politician which moves to ban marijuana on the same grounds as cigarettes.

|9.18.07 @ 12:26AM|#

Smokers should keep a joint around. Then when the cops show up to arrest you for smoking tobacco, whip the joint out and say you have glaucoma.

Heck, I'm wondering if I can get pot stench in an aerosol can. Then I can sell it to smokers in Belmont. Spray it around to mask the telltale odor of tobacco.

Roger Wellor|9.18.07 @ 12:55AM|#

Colonist

is perhaps unfamiliar with the fact you need to have grown the tobacco first? Not an hour long process.

One beauty of alcohol is that it can pretty much grow from any vegetable waste.

Booze is perhaps the easiest "drug" to produce.

The Wine Commonsewer|9.18.07 @ 1:06AM|#

....look like a smoke-filled bar (remember those?

Watched Sideways again last night and gasped at the bar scene where Maya lights up. INSIDE A BAR. IN CALIFORNICATE.

|9.18.07 @ 1:11AM|#

7) on theater stages "if smoking is an integral part of the story"

Hmmm ... time for some covert nonviolent civil disobedience, featuring:

Some theaters that happen to serve food and drinks, with the audiences being on the stage as an "integral part of the story", the story being about diners in a restaurant, with performances starting early in the morning and continuing until late at night?

Theaters telling a story about families living in condos and apartments, with actual families living in actual condos and apartments for authenticity, with an unstructured plot running for decades at a time?

All the world's a stage and we are merely players -- writ large?

|9.18.07 @ 6:05AM|#

After the smokes and the booze, the next bans will be steaks and KY Jelly.

|9.18.07 @ 6:35AM|#

prolefeed - your suggestion reminded me of when a local county here in Central Florida passed an ordinance against nudity. One local strip club started showing naked Shakespeare plays.

|9.18.07 @ 7:13AM|#

Uh... humblescholar... tell us about "steaks and KY jelly". Sounds sorta' kinky...

CB

|9.18.07 @ 8:03AM|#

I have to say, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Can I get an ordinance that keeps the goddamn whiny suburbanites out of my city? It tends to cut down on the whole "I may go to a bar twice a year, but I like it so much better smoke-free that I just know it's better for business this way."

If need be I can fund some research that will claim there is a health risk associated with allowing them to run around. (Have you seen how they drive? The extra stress they induce on the road has got to be killing MILLIONS every year)

ed|9.18.07 @ 8:46AM|#

I was in a "smoke-filled bar" Saturday night. There were more tattoos than humans and lots of pool tables. If this is your idea of heaven, I'll sell you a map for $8; $5 for nostalgic senior citizens on a fixed income.

|9.18.07 @ 9:13AM|#

It's become clear with the whole smoking thing: We're not gonna win this one. We're also probably not gonna win on the whole government/universal health care front.

At some point during one of these crusades, maybe what we need to do is just sit down with the freedom-destroyers -- the Hillary Clintons or whoevers of the moment -- and say:

"OK, look, you've obviously pinpointed X as sooo important that it merits trading in our basic American principles and sacrificing freedom. We'll give you this one, OK? You can have X, this thing you say is the most important.

"But here's the deal: That's it. Once we've sacrificed freedom for This Most Important-est Thing In the Whole World, you don't get to do it anymore. You don't get to find new X's. You don't get to keep using freedom-erosion as a 'solution' to 'problems.' All righty? OK, here's your universal health care. Now stop."

|9.18.07 @ 9:15AM|#

Remember this the next time some liberal nanny stater tells you that they worship at the alter of science and only the evil bible thumping global warming denying conservatives ignore science. There is no difference between the people who passed this law and the ignorent peasents of past times who burned wiches at the stake or dropped in rivers to see if they will float. This is just ignorant and intolerant madness driven by people who since they have no sollutions to real problems, invent sollutions to imagined problems to make themselves feel better.

Nephilium|9.18.07 @ 9:59AM|#

Tom: First you would have to make them understand that people have the freedom and the right to make bad decisions. And if government health care passes... I'm terrified... Then it becomes easier for anything "health" related to be regulated. They've already started on transfat. Next I would guess red meat, after that, anything grilled ("Charcoal causes cancer... it's like smoking three packs of cigarettes every time you eat a grilled burger!"), and then onto anything with fat. Next, how about mandated government exercise facilities? It's not fair that poor people can't join a health club, so everyone has to go. And make sure to bring your paperwork, there's a hefty tax for non-compliance.

I'll give into the nanny state when they pry my booze, cigarettes, fatty food, and tasty grilled animal flesh from my cold, greasy, nicotine stained fingers.

Nephilium

|9.18.07 @ 10:20AM|#

Nephilium,

There is no bigger threat to our freedom than socialized medicine for the reasons you mentioned. Don't think for a moment that they wouldn't want to control every aspect of your life, from when and how you exercise to what you can and cannot eat in the name of controling health costs. Libertarians spend way too much time worrying about procedural freedoms like privacy and not nearly enough worrying about substantive freedoms. Yeah, it is bad for the government to listen in on my phone conversations but that doesn't prevent me from doing anything. It is much worse when the government tells me what I can put into my body, what I can eat and what I can and cannot do in my own home. Socialized healthcare will be the death of this country as a free country in any real sense of the word.

JBinMO|9.18.07 @ 10:46AM|#

Maybe we should pool our money and send this city council brown shirts. If their not wearing them, they should be.

|9.18.07 @ 11:47AM|#

Why the city of Belmont won't bow down to the wishes of H&R readers as to how to govern their town I'll never know.

|9.18.07 @ 1:31PM|#

So can I smoke if it's an integral part of the actors' story?

Hovercraft Is 99% Eel Free!!!|9.18.07 @ 3:10PM|#

6) tobacconists, as long as minors are barred from the premises

Because minors are renown for scratching tobacconists, thereby ensuring that no Hungarian will ever buy them.

Alice Bowie|9.18.07 @ 4:27PM|#

I can see the future....

Instead of buying a pack of cigarettes from the store.

I will be buying my cigarettes by the nickle bad from the same guy selling herion, crack, and PCP.

Alice Bowie|9.18.07 @ 4:28PM|#

I can see the future....

Instead of buying a pack of cigarettes from the store.

I will be buying my cigarettes by the nickle BAG from the same guy selling herion, crack, and PCP.

poco|9.18.07 @ 5:40PM|#

Instead of buying a pack of cigarettes from the store, I will be buying my cigarettes by the nickel bag from the same guy selling heroin, crack, and PCP.

Re-fixed that for ya. ;-)