Cigarettes

Brickbat: Butt Out

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In England, Natalie Walton got a ticket in the mail at her parents' home in Kent. The ticket assessed a £75 fine ($95.63 U.S.) for littering, after an officer saw her drop a cigarette in nearby Swanscombe. But Walton says she doesn't smoke and has never visited Swanscombe. She also hasn't lived in that house for three years; she now lives over 150 miles away, in Staffordshire—which is where she was on the day she was said to have littered. She appealed the ticket, producing bank records of the shopping she did in Staffordshire that day. Officials said that on further review, a photo of the woman who dropped the cigarette doesn't look like Walton after all.