San Diego Smokin' (but Not for Long)

David Weigel | October 5, 2007

San Diego, the last major California city where smokers can do their thing in public parks, is reconsidering that stance.

The proposed smoking ban resurfaced this year when Vice Mayor David Cortese and Councilwoman Madison Nguyen asked the city to consider outlawing smoking in city parks.

It's more than an issue of secondhand smoke. Cortese says smoking in public sets a bad example for kids. Plus, he's tired of the seeing cigarette butts tossed everywhere in the parks.

He's tired of it--but, it's mostly for the kids. And then anti-smoking forces will be satisfied.

"This is a nice step, but what we would like to see is bans on smoking in doorways [of private buildings] so you don't have to go through a line of smokers," [Breathe California of the Bay Area CEO Margo] Sidener said.

OK, and then they'll be satisfied.

Comments

|10.5.07 @ 10:47AM|#

No level of secondhand smoke is 100% completely safe. Children should not be exposed to secondhand smoke in the parks. What if someone smokes there and a few days later a child is there? Could a few molecules of some smoke not still linger? What if a kid sees it?

Anything that helps the cops keep the kids off smoke is inherintly a good thing, I'm all foe it.

|10.5.07 @ 11:21AM|#

Note that Cortese said that he objected to smoking in public as a bad example for kids and not "smoking in a public park."

Ban the kids.

Big Nanny|10.5.07 @ 11:24AM|#

A deer can smell a hunter in a forest at least 48 hours after they have left. Childrens lungs react to smoke the same way.

|10.5.07 @ 11:39AM|#

How about we just cut to the chase and have the PC squad shoot the poor smoking bastards in the face?

Rhywun|10.5.07 @ 12:03PM|#

Vice Mayor David Cortese

He could change his title to Drug Czar.

tired of the seeing cigarette butts tossed everywhere in the parks

What a surprise for that to happen after you remove all the ashtrays.

Doctor Duck|10.5.07 @ 12:05PM|#

A deer can smell a hunter in a forest at least 48 hours after they have left.

Hell, they're still smelling me in this one forest and I haven't been there in 2 years.

ed|10.5.07 @ 12:37PM|#

tired of the seeing cigarette butts tossed everywhere

I am too, actually. I don't give a rat's ass if my fellow citizens smoke themselves to an early grave. I don't care if they do it at home or if they do it in the park or if they do it in their offices. But they do themselves no good by their stupid, unthinking littering. Note to smokers: that thing in your car that looks like an ashtray is indeed an ashtray. Try using it. You'll give the abolitionists one less reason to despise you. You're welcome.

Rhywun|10.5.07 @ 12:43PM|#

But they do themselves no good by their stupid, unthinking littering.

Yes, I also hate teenagers who toss food wrappers on the sidewalk. Oh, you're talking about smokers.

robin|10.5.07 @ 12:50PM|#

Just a small nit... The article was about San Jose, not San Diego.

They are close to one another though, only 468 miles or 5 characters in metric.

I love how the "studies" these modern day prohibitionists cite show increasingly tiny levels of exposure as a near death sentence. Think of all the money that could have been saved (still some opportunities) during the cold war if the spy agencies knew that instead of exotic poisons and delivery apparatus they could have just smoked near their targets!

Rhywun|10.5.07 @ 12:58PM|#

The article was about San Jose, not San Diego.

Unsurprising. Everyone knows San Jose is more progressive than San Diego.

Paul|10.5.07 @ 1:28PM|#

I love how the "studies" these modern day prohibitionists cite show increasingly tiny levels of exposure as a near death sentence.

It's homeopathic levels of second-hand smoke.

|10.5.07 @ 1:32PM|#

Can't we just shoot the children? Every last rotten little bastard. They're environmentally unsustainable anyway.

|10.5.07 @ 1:38PM|#

bigbigslacker | October 5, 2007, 1:32pm | #

Can't we just shoot the children? Every last rotten little bastard. They're environmentally unsustainable anyway.

Children are our future.
**shakes fist**
Unless we can stop them.

EW|10.5.07 @ 1:38PM|#

Oh, you're talking about smokers.

Since the topic is about smoking, yeah. But pigs are pigs, if you require clarification.

|10.5.07 @ 2:41PM|#

A 2007 study conducted by a Stanford University team suggests that a nonsmoker sitting a few feet from a smoldering cigarette will likely have a brief exposure to contaminated air.

For instance, if you sat 18 inches from a smoker at an outdoor cafe who has two cigarettes over the course of an hour, the exposure to secondhand smoke effects could be the same as if you sat one hour inside a tavern with smokers, the study concluded.

Yeah. Sure. You betcha.

Can we just get to the study that indicates that momentary exposure to 2nd-hand smoke will cause you to instantly and spontaniously combust? It's just as "plausible."

Paul|10.5.07 @ 4:52PM|#

For instance, if you sat 18 inches from a smoker at an outdoor cafe who has two cigarettes over the course of an hour

I did this same study a year ago, and what I found was that if you were sitting 18 inches from a smoker, you'd be in the smoker's lap.

Rhywun|10.5.07 @ 5:57PM|#

the exposure to secondhand smoke effects could be the same

Sure, if the smoker was blowing it into your face. Most of us are more polite than that.

But pigs are pigs, if you require clarification.

In other words, the "litter" argument against smokers is bogus, so why raise it, Mr. Vice Mayor?