What will parks smoking ban actually accomplish?
By Jordan Royer
February 18, 2010
The decision by Seattle parks Superintendent Timothy Gallagher to ban smoking in Seattle parks is a terrible idea. First, the Seattle Police Department already has difficulty enforcing rules in the parks. Second, no one will actually be ticketed because SPD, the city attorney, and judges all will think it a waste of time and resources. And finally, some of our urban parks are adjacent to tourist facilities — think of Freeway Park next to the Convention Center &mdash where people can be expected to go outside to find a place to smoke.
Currently, there are ashtrays and benches set up for visitors to smoke. Presumably, those ashtrays will be removed, and then, since the rule will not be enforced, this will lead to more litter and more expense for parks crews cleaning up afterward.
But there is an even more compelling reason for opposing this rule: cigarettes are a legal product. If it is legal to smoke on the sidewalk or a parking lot or an alley, why not a park? This rule goes too far, won’t be enforced, and is not necessary to protect public health or safety.
Comments:
Comment by fgruben, posted Thu, Feb 18, 2:17 p.m.
What seems to me to be the most telling about this is that Gallagher went on vacation after he did this so he wouldn't have to be bothered about it. Since the few studies I have seen on secondhand smoke deal with smoke inside a building, his comment "it is approriate and beneficial to prohibit the use of tobacco products at parks and park facilities" seems to be that of another politician trying to keep their name in the press by being overly politically correct.
Comment by bubbleator, posted Thu, Feb 18, 5:30 p.m.
Um, it will make Seattle look even more ridiculous and insular to the rest of the region and state than we already do?
Comment by bkochis, posted Thu, Feb 18, 8:31 p.m.
Enforcement is not the issue. The issue is, as I see it, the urbanization and civilization of a rural (if you want to be romantic call it "Wild West") population. The progress of civilization and the making of citizens has been the slow but inexorable realization that individuals in the close proximity of towns need to keep their bodily waste to themselves (defecation, urination, spitting, coughing, and toxic lung waste) when they are in public. It is also the realization that a public park is not a private backyard but a common space that must be shared and respected because it is shared by other citizens, including and maybe especially children, the next generation of citizens.
Gallagher's vacation has abolutely nothing to do with the rightness of the policy. That's a red herring.
Bublieator's worry is odd. Why should Seattle worry what Moses Lake thinks about us? Is this a regional popularity contest in which we have to make sure Boise or Boseman or Fairbanks doesn't laugh at us? Since when did New York worry about Buffalo's opinion when it banned smoking in restaurants and bars? It's a bizarre argument about policy in our own city parks.
There is no prima facie reason why in a public space I have to tolerate smokers but they do not have to tolerate non-smokers, espcially when we know definitively that their behavior is harmful and mine is not.
If supporting public accommodation for vulnerable citizens (ADA, those allergic to smoke, the children)is PC, then I am guilty and I accept the label with pride. The Marlboro Man is not my image of a citizen.
Comment by bubbleator, posted Thu, Feb 18, 11:43 p.m.
bkochis,
The City's response speaks for itself - there are much better fights to pick and things to use political capital on that this nanny state guff.
Comment by bubbleator, posted Thu, Feb 18, 11:44 p.m.
ack, "...than this nanny state guff."
Comment by bubbleator, posted Thu, Feb 18, 11:57 p.m.
...and this was also promulgated by the same person who pushed a proposal to ban all beach fires which he backed away from in the face of massive public opposition, and who also committed an ethics violation when he finagled a special permit to hold his own wedding in a public park.
This stuff doesn't exactly help Seattle in Olympia, or at the King County Council, or in any other place where we need help from people and politicians who don't live in the city limits.
Comment by okime, posted Fri, Feb 19, 8:47 a.m.
Well said!!
Comment by cocktails42, posted Fri, Feb 19, 11:15 a.m.
bkochis is intolerant of smokers and wants the rest of us to be intolerant as well. But I for one am not intolerant of smokers and don't want to be forced to be so by the intolerant-minded, like bkochis. It's people like that I can't tolerate.
Comment by Sean, posted Sat, Feb 20, 10:57 a.m.
What's remarkable is that this ban wasn't a response to citizen-initiated lobbying, it was the result of Gallagher soliciting park employees for a list of pet peeves they'd like to see turned into laws. (It astounds me that they would have banned spitting if they had their way - where are we, in Singapore?) And when public feedback was given, Gallagher ignored it.
Tim Gallagher needs to be reminded that the parks don't belong to him and his employees, they belong to the citizens of Seattle. Tim seriously overstepped his authority, and he should be fired for it.