The top story in today’s Pekin Daily Times announces “Smoking Ban Taxes Downtown Litter Control.”
That is incorrect.
Litter-bug smokers who selfishly and irresponsibly believe that the world is their ashtray tax downtown litter control. Don’t blame this problem on the smoking ban.
8 responses so far ↓
1
NewsAnchorMom
// Mar 25, 2008 at 8:31 pm
I was at a local hospital the other day and I walked down a very stinky stairwell to find several dozen cigarette butts in the corner. I don’t think that’s what the hospitals meant when they went smoke free. Ugh!
2
Michael Legel
// Mar 25, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Just more evidence that you can’t legislate good hygiene, either personal or social, without enforcement … and enforcement isn’t free. As an ex-smoker I understand completely both sides of the argument. It would seem that providing appropriate outdoor receptacles might be in order if we really wished to solve the litter problem. Public trash receptacles are a thing of the past in most cities so I suppose public butt cans are out of the question.
3
jenjw4
// Mar 26, 2008 at 7:09 am
Michael,
Public butt cans (ha ha) might make a bit of a difference, but I wonder…. It seems rare that I drive very far and don’t see at least one cigarette thrown out a car window, and presumably, smokers know they are going to smoke in their cars and could take measures (a .97 ashtray?) to make sure they don’t litter.
Jennifer
4
Michael Legel
// Mar 26, 2008 at 7:29 am
Jennifer,
You are absolutely right on the money … there is no excuse for throwing anything on fire on the ground, leaving it to burn down who knows what. That, I think, is sheer laziness and neglect — it should be punished. Back to enforcement again. It is such a shame we share a planet with some real slobs.
5
Eric
// Mar 26, 2008 at 7:56 am
I have been complaining about this since the first week of the ban.
The law states that people cannot smoke with 15 feet of the a business area…. And we are not going to move ashtrays out to the middle of the parking lot… So, now, our business parking lot is covered with buts! And our ashtrays are in storage!
This is the same with most small businesses and resturants that I visit… More buts on the ground!
Thanks smokers… Thanks Illinois! Great idea!
6
Anon E. Mouse
// Mar 26, 2008 at 6:12 pm
The butts have always been there, they are just being moved about.
One business I frequent has banned smoking on the entire campus. The grounds of this business have never been cleaner. Walk to the edge of the parking lot, though and there are TONS of butts on the ground, along with regular trash – coffee cups, soda cans, food wrappers. It’s what was spread all over the parking lot before is now piled in one corner.
Maybe now we see what slobs some smokers really are.
7
Michael
// Mar 27, 2008 at 3:29 pm
http://www.mjlegel.com/Jokes/2006/FunPhotos/0018.jpg
8
A Knight in Dragonland » More Special Accomodations For Smokers
// Mar 28, 2008 at 10:05 am
[...] is legal doesn’t meant that you can inflict your toxic habit on other people. Also, as I stated previously, the world is not your ashtray. Keep your carcinogenic chemicals to yourself, and clean up your [...]
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