I really think Second Hand Smoke has gone the way of Global Warming.
Town Meeting members in Belmont voted overwhelmingly Monday in favor of a warrant article that bans smoking in public parks and on athletic fields.
First up let’s just say that public lands are public property and subject to whatever restrictions the people want, I see nothing legally wrong with banning smoking on these lands, and its entirely in Belmont’s rights. Still its bullshit like this that really annoys me.
The article was the result of a citizen petition started by resident Pam Makrides.
“What motivated me was the lack of protection for my 18-month-old daughter,” Makrides said. “I would take her to the park and see people smoking. When I asked them to stop, they said, ‘There’s no law against it,’ so I had no choice but to take my daughter home.”
Are you kidding me? Something tells me that there weren’t young adults hanging on the monkey bars having a butt, and blowing smoke at the toddlers. I suspect that on the same park were benches, and people sitting on them having a smoke, and Ms. Makrides felt the need to storm across the park to tell them how she thinks they should live their lives, and somehow her daughter had a relevance to this cause.
But how did she take her daughter to the park? Did they walk along the sidewalks, or drive on the roads. You know, the roads with all those gasoline-powered cars. How does she heat her home? Gas? Oil? She have a gas stove? She ever burn food when cooking? Does she have a wood fireplace or stove? Do her Neighbors? When I lived in Belmont I had a fireplace in my apartment, I didn’t feel the need to use it, but my landlord told me I was welcome to. Has she ever had a cookout when the weather is nice? Have her neighbors ever?
Has she ever considered that she is exposed to far more carcinogens from any of these sources than she is from a person smoking a cigarette near her in an open space, let alone somebody a hundred feet or more from her.
Sorry, when people cart out the junk science, and double-standards, that’s when you know its simply bigotry against a legal activity. Smoking is hardly good for your health, and if you do smoke, you’re probably better off quitting, and if you don’t smoke, that’s a good habit to keep. That being said, I’m sick of totalitarian jerkoffs fuming on like somehow the wiff of a Marlborough as you go about your day is some sort of death ray that will strike your body filled with cancer before you can even roll the windows of your Prius up.
