by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
It has been a while now that the total ban on smoking in bars, restaurants and the work place has come into force and effect in Britain and it sure has made for better air in those places.
It is actually, aside from some of the people one encounters there, now a pleasure to go and visit a public house or a restaurant, as the air is now clean and there is no longer a need to bring an NBC mask or a machete with which to cut the air.
But, at the same time, it has gotten rather smoky just outside of such places, whether pubs, restaurants or work places, as people go there to indulge in their habit of smoking. In the work place many work hours are lost per week simply because people walk outside to smoke.
Also the areas where such smoking is taking place, at least some of them, have begun drowning in cigarette butts, as people do not even use the ashtrays provided but simply drop the ends as and where.
The latter was somewhat predictable as people – in the main – just do not care about what happens to those cigarette ends that they drop.
This has led to some city father and councilors asking for a total ban on smoking in public, including parks and open spaces.
While one can agree with the sentiments the enforcement of this, whether left to police, rangers and order authorities, will be a nightmare in more that one aspect and, personally, I think it cannot be done.
On the other hand some way people must be brought to their senses that they not only still harm themselves but others and the environment in the way they continue to indulge in their habit of smoking.
While the pubs, as said, may now be free of smoke from tobacco as soon as you step outside you get assailed by the smoke and the stench still and in addition to that you have to wade through the butts left about.
The problem is that people often are rather ignorant and insist on continuing with this dirty and unhealthy habit, that is costing the health service millions if not billions a year, regardless and to the point that some seem to want to make a statement by smoking immediately outside the venues by the very doors and by leaving the ends of their cigarettes and cigars about on the ground.
Will education work here?I doubt. In the same way that I doubt a total ban of smoking in pubic is enforceable. However, dropping butts should be an offense that should attract a nice hefty fine in the same way as smoking directly outside venues should. Maybe that way we can clean up the act here.
© 2009
<>
