County ERF Bans Smoking; Some Smokers Fume

Oswego Daily News ^ | May 29, 2002 | Heidi Rauch-Webb

[Just another Joe]

County ERF Bans Smoking; Some Smokers Fume

By Heidi Rauch-Webb /Oswego Daily News

The Oswego County Energy Recovery Facility has gone the way of airlines, hospitals and most shopping malls in the country: no smoking in their facility.

Deputy Superintendent Frank Visser said that though only about 10 out of 30 employees at the ERF are smokers, the issue was a serious one.

"Our lunch room was also our smoking room and it's very small," he explained. "People who don't smoke couldn't get away from the smoke."

Visser said that there had been some complaints to the health department and a few weeks ago Michael Rosen, Deputy Health Commissioner, and an assistant visited the facility and came to the conclusion that controlling the smokers was not feasible so they designated the building as non-smoking.

"The new policy is that people who want to smoke must do so 20 feet from the building," Visser said.

There were some disgruntled employees but Visser told the assembled County Department of Public Works committee last week that some of the smokers have no one to blame but themselves.

"Some smokers were smoking in non-designated areas," he said. "I told them that it takes only one person to ruin it for the rest of the employees."

Visser said the decision is final after the recommendation went to the county Legislature's Health committee.

"It's a done deal," he told DPW committee members as they offered suggestions on how to correct the problem. "As a smoker, you have no rights. If I smoked, I guess I'd just quit."

[VRWC_minion]

I pray if you ever run into purereason (and tell him how you feel about his smoke) that I'm there to see it!!!,

I take it that if purereason had to fight a battle with only reason he would come unarmed ?

[metesky]

Oh, I believe that you tell smokers they smell (the small ones anyway). What I meant and you know is that you never tell the smokers to their faces that you want to shoot them.

I know plenty of armed smokers.
;O)

[metesky]

Hating people for acting irrationally is itself irrational. Or are you too irrationally wrapped in your little hatreds to see that.

[metesky]

Joe, a funny thing just occurred to me. Isn't an Energy Recovery Facility a fancy name for a stinking trash burning dump?

[Just another Joe]

Isn't an Energy Recovery Facility a fancy name for a stinking trash burning dump?

Yes, it is. I just didn't want to muddy the waters with getting into that fact.

[VRWC_minion]

What I meant and you know is that you never tell the smokers to their faces that you want to shoot them.

Only those with a sense of humor, apparently not too many on this thread do.

[VRWC_minion]

Hating people for acting irrationally is itself irrational

Who said anything about hating smokers. I hate their smoke big difference and yes I am working on getting enough people to agree with me that its ok to change the laws to allow smokers to be shot on sight when the smoke. That isn't hate, thats just my politics. So far I haven't gotten anyone to sign my petition but I keep working on it.

[Beep]

"Special rights?! SPECIAL RIGHTS?!"

Have you looked at how many "sin taxes" are thrown on us, not to mention all the rights being stripped from us?! They are not "special" rights; they are the exact same rights. And we're not getting them! We have fewer rights, and more taxes, and less and less money!

It's not about smnoking. Don't you get it? Who are "they" going to target next to get their books to balance?? They can't do their job, they can't keep the economy from going down the dumper, so they target a specific group (that they have been cultivating others to hate, which sickens me in and of itself!) and tax the pants off them, and pull the rug out from under them.

"Smokers have no rights?!" They could target bald people next. Or short people. Or maybe tall, beautiful, intelligent half-Swedish blonde women with blue eyes! (I'd really be in trouble then!) It's ridiculous! It's un-Constitutional. I'm mad as heck, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!!

If we allow this to go unanswered, we are just as guilty as the idiots who are doing this kind of thing! The Constitution still has just as much meaning as it did on the day it was written!

BTW -- if the rude, holier-than-thou maggots who enjoy jumping all over smokers would try to be nice about it, and perhaps politely explain that they have really bad asthma (or whatever their particular problem may happen to be), and that the cigarette smoke was causing them major problems at that time, you'd be surprised how many smokers would respect that and go elsewhere to smoke! Voluntarily! But does anyone try that?! No. They whine to upper management first, and the Constitution goes up in smoke! No questions asked.

Smokers have the same rights as everyone else. NOT fewer! Oh -- and the "second-hand smoke" argument?! Do some digging for the facts. Not the surface, bought-and-paid-for, manufactured-for-lobbyists mess, but the actual facts. To say that the results have been "skewed for public consumption" is being polite.

But smokers make a lovely target. Most smokers are too passive to say or do anything. However, I am tired of being nice about it, and thinking "oh -- it will go away!" It's time I sharpened my pencil (I do hope the little ground up pencil particles won't make you choke?!), and went to town -- if I can find a newspaper or magazine that will publish my views, seeing as how they are not P.C. and all?! Grrrrrrrr!!

It's time we all take our gloves off. We're not fighting for smokers; we're fighting for the Constitution! Once we allow one group to be dumped on, the door is wide open for more groups, and more, and more. I'm not going to stand by and watch that happen.

Anyone who wants to brainstorm with me, or knows of a publication that isn't pussy-willow whipped, please let me know?! I'm on fire for our rights! Gosh dangit!!

God bless the Constitution! (Let's help save it!)

[Drango]

God bless the Constitution!

I'll second that.

Now, if you can please tell me how or where the Constitution protects your right to smoke, but subordinates my right to breath clean air????

[Bobsat]

There is NO justification in making a person go 50 feet from the building to have a cigarette. Unless it's to save face for the boss about what he has done to his workers who choose to smoke.

Actually, there is. It may not be one that's easy to agree with, but there is. (BTW, this article says 20 feet.)

When employers simply said "no smoking in the building," they soon discovered that employees congregated right outside the entrances to smoke, which visitors had to navigate, and which soon took on the appearance of the employer being picketed.

Then employers said "no smoking within so many feet of the entrances." Didn't help much. The smoking congregations just moved so many feet up or down the sidewalk.

By saying "no smoking within so many feet of the building," employers want smokers to avoid congregating where they will be associated with the building. They can go across the street, into the parking lot, etc., and "problem solved" without getting into those sticky issues about freedom to assemble, associate, etc.

[VRWC_minion]

So you believe a town cannot ban smoking in one of its own buildings ? Interesting.

[Beep]

Read a few municipal ordinances. You can be kicked out of public buildings if you stink badly enough.

Sorry -- you are incorrect. There are some medical conditions (and medical treatments!) that can cause extreme BO, and the patient/employee is unable to control it. These people do not smell "fresh as a daisy," but they cannot be forced to leave a building, or even a particular room in the building, because of it.

I am a patients' rights advocate, and this is exactly the kind of thing I deal with on a regular basis.

It's too bad that people cannot be banned from a public place, or internet forum, for being ignorant and malicious. Sadly, I am all too aware that you cannot. UNTIL you cross the line, anyway.

[Beep]

There is no clean air. Anywhere. Colorado is the closest place I know of that actually has relatively clean air.

[Just another Joe]

Now, if you can please tell me how or where the Constitution protects your right to smoke, but subordinates my right to breath clean air????

Can you tell me how or where the constitution protects your right to go anywhere you want and have everyone cater to your desires?

[Poohbah]

My, my, my!

I seem to have touched a nerve.

However, you HAVE hit on the key issue: the person with BO as a product of a real medical condition cannot control said odor (and is protected under the ADA). A person who merely does not bathe can, but chooses not to. A smoker can control his emissions of cigarette smoke. Enough refuse to do so that their emissions are controlled for them.

[Beep]

So you believe a town cannot ban smoking in one of its own buildings ? Interesting.

Where did you pull that from? It must have been from under your desk, because I said no such thing. Interesting. . . .

I wasn't writing about the lunch room in that particular building; I've never been there. I was writing about the matter in general. Capiche??

[purereason]

"Smokers have no clue how bad they smell and how bad they make everything around them smell."

I do believe that's your breath backing up on you.

[purereason]

"Smokers have no clue how bad they smell and how bad they make everything around them smell."

I do believe that's your breath backing up on you.

[Beep]

It's not an insult; it's an observation. For all I know, you're really an OK person, but your FR persona holds that "my rights are absolute; everyone else has none."

Not the impression of Just another Joe's "FR persona" that I got at all! He simply doesn't agree with you, so you appear to have painted him with a very broad brush -- and unfairly so, IMHO.

Just another Joe -- you're okay by me!

[VRWC_minion]

Where did you pull that from?

From this:

If we allow this to go unanswered, we are just as guilty as the idiots who are doing this kind of thing!