Councilman burned up by smoking in line

The Orange County Register ^ | November 27, 2001 | VALERIA GODINES

[Max McGarrity]

The BS must be deeper (and more dry) in CA than it is here if there is a fire hazard on the sidewalk.

I KNEW when they hired those low-bid contractors to put in new sidewalks there was gonna be trouble. Musta used that flammable concrete to cut corners.

[Aristophanes]

You nico-nazis are all the same, never want to be confused with facts, logic, or reason. There is only one choice in your skewed little minds, and that is that everyone should conform to your way of thinking. Thank God I'm independent minded and have never practiced discrimination or racism. It is an ugly characteristic that lies within those like you who have stumbled on a new group to hate, the "smoker."

WEEEELLLLLL.

After such a well-reasoned, logical and factual post such as that, I guess you really told ME, didn'tcha? LOL!

Truth is, I don't care if you smoke. I don't even care WHAT you smoke. Just don't do it so that I have to smell it. That's all I ask. Don't invade my airspace. Simple courtesy.

We non-smokers don't hate you for smoking -- we hate you for being so damned self-centered and inconsiderate that you think nothing of fouling the air in OUR lungs and leaving that disgusting film on OUR hair and clothes. What you choose to do to yourself is your business. What you do to me, is mine.

[Max McGarrity]

Where do you live that the city doesn't sweep your streets? Maybe that's who you should be complaining to about butts and don't forget all the styrofoam cups, Mickey D's bags, dirty diapers, etc. I've heard many anti-smokers here wailing and moaning about the "foot-high piles" of cigarette butts at every corner, but we sure don't have them here. I used to toss butts out the window, just like most everyone else--it didn't seem to be such a big thing then. But since I've been fighting for the individual liberties and private property rights of one-quarter of the population as it slides down into oblivion, I've become "edumacated" and no longer do so. I empty the ashtray in my car every time I fill up. I also don't light a cigarette around folks I don't know without asking if they mind; I don't smoke on the street; I do everything possible to stay away from tinhorn dictators, hypochondriacs and frail, sickly or whiny people.

[TexanaRED]

therefore, before you light up, understand that you will be annoying most of the people around you.

Therefore, before you bring your bratty, screaming kids into a restaurant, movie, or whatever, understand you will be annoying most of the people around you.

That is not meant for you in particular. The majority of the ones I have seen that bitch and moan about smoking always seem to have in tow two or three little heathens that scream, cry, whine and make dining or whatever completely miserable for everyone else. I wish somebody would pass a NO BRATTY KIDS rule for restaurants, etc.

[Aristophanes]

Go outside in front of your house and count the cigarette butts you see. Stop counting when it gets dark or reach 1 million -- whichever comes first. I dare you.

[rickmoe]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[rickmoe]

YEAH!!! And all that wonderful free second-hand smoke.

[Max McGarrity]

You're saying that a 4 foot tall, 75 pound, 8 year old boy is supposed to walk up to a 6 foot, 200 pound, 40 year old man and say "Excuse me, pardon for the intrusion, I know it's really not my place and everything, but could you put that out, please"? Give me a break!

I had NO IDEA Councilman Rosen was an 8-year-old boy!!! Imagine that! Only in Amerika...

[Max McGarrity]

If only all smokers were as courteous, then these anti-smoking laws would be a non-issue because they're wouldn't be any anti-smoking laws.

Not true. The anti-smoker laws are not being passed because the people are clamoring for them; they are being foisted upon an unsuspecting public by well-paid, highly professional single-issue groups with an axe to grind and lazy, arrogant self-righteous lawmakers. Aided and abetted by people like you.

[Max McGarrity]

Hey, Gabz. Do you now or have you EVER in your entire life known one single smoker who smoked Lights or Milds to try to be healthy? I sure don't. It's all in the TASTE, not the "health benefits." Are these people that stupid?

[101viking]

"we hate you for being so damned self-centered and inconsiderate that you think nothing of fouling the air in OUR lungs and leaving that disgusting film on OUR hair and clothes. What you choose to do to yourself is your business. What you do to me, is mine."

As a wise man once said..."it's all about you isn't it?" And who do you proport to represent in your "OUR" statements? Are you the spokesman for all non-smokers? Or, do you just have difficulty with the word "me?" Someone in your life who is near and dear to you accuse of being selfish and always all about "me?" I think your problem with smokers goes way beyond being annoyed by second hand smoke.

[Gabz]

Where did you get these numbers?

the SHS numbers come from a variety of sources including the EPA studies of studies that classified it as a Class A Carcinogen.

Here's one for you: ""RR for drinking whole milk and lung cancer is also 2.14--Milk Drinking, Other Beverage Habits, and Lung Cancer Risk. Curtis Mettlin. International Journal of Cancer: 43, 608-612 (1989). The study was supported in part by the American Cancer Society. Same study reported rr of .12 for eating porkchops one or more times a week and 2.42 for pork sausage one or more times a week."" I realize this is not the information I sited earlier, but this actually even worse.

I'm not arguing that shs is or isn't carcinogenic.

That doesn't matter - that is the point of all of these anti-smoker laws and regulations. The EPA had an agenda and a preconceived notion that SHS exposure was bad for non-smokers and then set out to prove the pre-conceived notion. That is just wrong. Regulating things because some people don't like them is rather difficult - so instead they manipulated the science to prove the unproveable. That is why it is been vacated by the judicial system - the EPA and the rest of the anti-smoker groups involved in the whole SHS fiasco lied then and continue to lie now about it.

What I was asking is does it pose a health risk at all? And the answer is of course it does.

I didn't say it didn't. But the question is, just how much of a health risk - apparently a whole lot less than the grubmint and lamestream media want you to believe.

If your saying that a person is 3 times more likely to get lung cancer from whole cow's milk than from shs, I'd say that that statement is wrong.

I would say that you are wrong. I did not make up the above mentioned information. If I was making it up why would I cite where it came from????

No it is not information you are going to find in the media - this stuff is covered up on a regular basis.

I don't dare tell you what the World Health Organization covered up in the worlds longest and largest study about SHS - you definitely would say I was wrong.

I won't tell you what the study commissioned by the US Department of Energy about SHS and hospitality workers said - you would again say I was wrong.

[Max McGarrity]

However, my point is just this: Clean air offends no one, smoke-filled air offends 75% of our population. (75% was the statistic posted by someone on another thread, I don't know the source.), therefore, before you light up, understand that you will be annoying most of the people around you. If this fact pleases you, then there is something emotionally wrong with you, get help. Delighting in cruetly is defined as sadism.

Assuming facts not in evidence, friend. This is textbook fallacious logic and won't stand up to scrutiny. Every smoker has at least one friend or family member who doesn't give a rat's patoot if he or she smokes, do you deny that? Right there is 50% or more of the population, and I'd bet real money the figure is much higher of people who just don't mind the smoke. Anti-smokers are not the majority of nonsmokers, they're really just a loud, unpleasant fraction.

Secondly, you make the assumption that air without cigarette smoke is "clean." It isn't. In its refusal to make smokefree workplaces part of its rules, OSHA stated that the level of PELS in a smoker-friendly establishment seldom if ever rises to a dangerous level. On the other hand, investigators are just completing a study that measured particulate matter exposures during a variety of different cooking activities. The results show that cooking can produce very high levels of some pollutants, much higher than previously realized. Baking and broiling some foods produced even higher levels. Some of these dangerous toxins are very bad: even if an individual were only exposed to these levels for one hour a day, and exposed to no other toxins, his or her exposure would exceed OSHA's standards of safety.

So your entire argument is built on the shifting sands of anti-smoker illogic.

[Gabz]

Are you're saying that most people don't mind cigarette smoke? I doubt that that's true. Go ask people at random. Go to the mall, the grocery store, anywhere where you get a mix of smokers and non-smokers.

If he is saying that most people don't mind - I have to agree. I have asked people at random. The general attitude is "I don't care - as long as you don't blow it my face." Well, heck, I don't know anyone who likes that - it's rude.

If you look closely at the surveys that have been done in regard to this issue, you will notice that the vast majority are funded by organizations that are trying to ban smoking or by pharmaceutical companies that are trying to sell quit-smoking products.

You could take the same group of randomly picked 100 folks and get 2 entirely different survey results on the same subject by asking the same question in 2 different ways.

The tobacco industry doesn't bother conducting them (or at least publishing them if they do) because the media will immediately do one of 2 things - they will 86 it or they will contact one of the prominent anti-smoker organizations to debunk it.

don't get me wrong - I've got no problem with business owners deciding to go non-smoking - my problem is with the anti-smokers forcing ALL businesses to be that way.

As to banning smoking out of doors - it is utterly ridiculous. there are far worse pollutants in the outside air than a bit of tobacco smoke.

[Max McGarrity]

You seem to have missed the entire point of my post. THERE ARE NO CIGARETTE BUTTS (or any other kind of trash) on ANY streets in this entire city. None. Nada. Zip, Zero. Zilch.

[Gabz]

Great story!!!!!!!!

[estrogen]

That's why I contend that car ashtrays are the most useless invention ever: non-smokers don't need them, and smokers don't use them.

To expound on the anti smoking nazi's agenda, when I bought my Acura TL it did not have an ashtray, only a coin holder. I had to practically call the president of the company to buy an add on. The dealer , salesmen , etc. all said they didn't make one. Did they decide I shouldn't smoke in my car? I will never buy another Acura because of that.

Maybe that's why you see people throwing cigs out the window..........there's NO ASHTRAY

[BunnySlippers]

He also considers outdoors "confined quarters" so no smoking outside.

Los Angeles has plans on the table to ban smoking in parks ... I'm sure smoking in front of office buildings will be cloae behind. I used to smoke and sometimes still miss it ... but I've thought, "If I wanted to take up smoking, where could I smoke anyway?"

[Gabz]

I don't give a crap about whether or not it's dangerous, I just object to you fouling my air.

Fine - someone finally admitting the real reason behind all of this crap - how refreshing!!!!

So I would assume you would have no problem with allowing the business owners to decide who can smoke in an establishment. How about movie theaters that cater to smokers - therefore if you've got a problem with the smoke in the line - you go to another theater that doesn't permit it????