Smoking bothers my eyes and it gives me a headache but this sounds extreme. Too far?
CBS News correspondent Jay Dow reports that New York City is now taking the war against tobacco a step further with a new law that goes into effect tomorrow, banning smoking outdoors – at beaches, boardwalks, parks, and pedestrian plazas.The ban is not exactly universally popular.
“It’s not fair, Ya know. I’m a smoka. That’s my choice. I smoke.It’s not gonna make me stop,” said New Yorker Frank Zieran.
New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, a former smoker, pushed for the law that aims to drastically reduce, if not eliminate exposure to second hand smoke.
NOTE FROM JOHN: Yikes, I’m going to disagree with Chris about smoking laws – whodathunk I could make him look like a smoke lover ;-) But I have to say, I’m rather sick and tired of walking down the sidewalk and having to smell the smoke of someone a good 30 feet in front of me. Ditto for the beach, it’s disgusting – the smoke wafts a good 30 feet, choking everyone in its path. Or never being able to sit outside at a restaurant or a cafe without the person at the next table huffing and puffing away as if I’m not in the middle of eating two feet away from them when I am. I was sitting outside at a restaurant a few weeks ago for a friend’s birthday, the smokers were sitting around the corner, we couldn’t even see them, and their smoke was bothering us. Smoking is a nasty habit that I don’t necessarily have a problem with if people want to do it in the privacy of their own home. But in public, where I have to breathe it, no way. Your right to smoke stops when you force me to inhale it against my will.
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