Friday, August 01, 2008

Smoking in Public Places

We've been to two concerts in the last week - Styx and Boston on Saturday night and REO Speedwagon last night. The bands were great. I enjoyed listening to them. What I didn't enjoy was the fact that I had to breathe tons of cigarette smoke simply because I wanted to be there. It gets me to wondering - who decided that only the smokers get to have fun? Any kind of event like that and the smokers come out - huge throngs of them. The rest of us have to decide if the event will be enough fun that it's worth exposing ourselves to that. Do I really want to breathe that, probably get a major headache, burning eyes and sore throat? Or would I rather stay home?

And, seriously, why should I have to make that kind of choice? Why should my desire to see a concert mean I also have to be packed in with people blowing smoke in my face? And, no, they can't just smoke and get it over with. They have to constantly light up - first this one and then that one - never stopping, and each time it's like a new slap in the face. Do they honestly not know how rude, inconsiderate and obnoxious the whole thing is? Sure, they have a right to smoke, but what about my right to breathe? Who decided my rights are less important than theirs?

Couldn't we just cluster all the smokers somewhere together - downwind from the rest of us? Let them all breathe each other's smoke and let me actually enjoy something for a change?

4 comments:

  1. Where I live we aren't allowed to smoke in public places. Not in bars even. We aren't even allowed to smoke in cars if there is a child under the age of 19 in it.

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  2. tammy - I think that's how it should be. I might even go to a bar once in a while...

    You have the right to smoke, as long as it doesn't affect other people. In public, there's no way it can not bother other people. It especially bothers me to see people smoking around little kids, and in a closed-in car it would be especially bad.

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  3. I just read the newspaper today that yesterday was the first time for all cigarette factories here in my country, Indonesia, for not making any kind of their ads in any kind of music and sport events/activities. Sponsorship is ok, but ads..no!! I heard at many big countries that kind of rules had already applied years before. is it true? I also hate smokers, thanks God my hubby and all his brother don't smoke.

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  4. I completely agree with you! I wish smoking was banned here. Even when it's banned inside - people congregate around doorways outside and you just about have to walk through a cloud of smoke to go inside or outside. Sigh.

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