Up In Smoke
Ten, maybe five years ago, I wouldn’t have thought this possible in Charlotte: a smoking ban in outdoor public places. Today? Oh, yeah, sooner or later some bright bulb on city council, likely at the “encouragement” of Center City Partners, will bring this front and center. For the common good, of course.
From NPR, on the latest effort in New York:
The proposed ban on smoking would affect about 1,700 parks, plazas and beaches. It still needs to pass the City Council, but the number of angry smokers ready to fight is dwindling in New York. The goal, at least among some in city government, is to keep this up until everyone in New York has quit.
“I would like people to stop smoking,” says Gail Brewer, a New York City Council member and sponsor of the anti-smoking bill. “I’m not going to say otherwise.”
While heading down to City Hall Park to talk with smokers about the proposed regulations, Brewer shared a secret: The police will not be actively hunting down smoking scofflaws.
“I’m not interested in fines or getting anyone arrested,” she said.
She just wants the law on the books for sort of moral support.
“When you are sitting on the beach with your family and somebody is smoking, you can’t grab the kids and all the stuff and move,” she says. “You can say very nicely it’s against the law to smoke on the beach and hopefully they will understand and I’m sure they will.”
Insert a faux uptown piazza for beach, and tell me you can’t imagine the tasseled-loafer tyrants at Center City Partners saying something similar.
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