What's next for smokers? Jail?

Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Editorial
Gazette

How far will anti-smoking zealots go?

Not content with indoor smoking bans, where adequate ventilation is problematic, the antismoking crowd has increasingly shifted its focus to outdoor smoking anyplace that people — especially children — tend to congregate.

For example, in Schenectady two years ago the City Council was pressured into banning smoking in Central Park’s Tiny Tot playground — a somewhat defensible position given that it is a relatively small, fenced-in area where the primary users are children under 10 and their parents watching them. Now, the council is preparing to extend the ban to other areas of the park where secondhand smoke could conceivably bother large numbers of users — picnic pavilions, ballfields and other playgrounds. Again, there’s some logic here, though all of these places are out in the open — where any smoke is likely to dissipate rapidly and where, if it were to bother anyone, getting away from it probably wouldn’t require much effort.

But the council apparently isn’t satisfied with just a ban; on Tuesday, it amended its proposal to include a $50 fine. The fine was added to give the new ban some teeth, but it’s hard to imagine the police showing up to write someone a ticket just for smoking a cigarette (or chewing tobacco).

Why not simply ask them to put it out? They may not even know they’re breaking a law — unless dozens of “No Smoking” signs get posted, which wouldn’t exactly enhance the park’s atmosphere. But if there are few people around, a smoker may truly not be bothering anyone. So why make a big deal out of it?

Another issue cited by City Council members is litter — too many cigarette butts discarded on the park grounds. They’re unquestionably a nuisance, but so is lots of other litter dropped by slobs, in the park and elsewhere in the city. If you want to crack down on smokers littering, crack down on others, too.