On Thu, May 01, 2003 at 11:47:49AM -0400, Sunder wrote:
Point is that street, and that air is not your property, it's shared property - and hence not subject to your whims, likes and distates, but upto the community to decide its usage. If a large enough population who uses said street wishes to smoke there, then the whims of a small minority of who are offended by second hand smoke should not force the rules to be changed.
You've got it exactly backwards -- it's only a small (and decreasing as well) portion of the population that smokes, and it's the majority who don't want to breath the second-hand smoke. That's why the mayor of NYC is able to get away with banning smoking in bars and restaurants. Get over it -- public smoking is going to be banned everywhere, plenty of cities have already banned it in restaurants, public buildings, etc. It's only a matter of time before it's also banned on the street, and there are already proposed laws being considered to do just that. -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com