Nearly two years ago I wrote about how I often find the lingering smoke annoying when I go for walks around town. It’s difficult to walk along a main street in Wellington’s CBD during certain times of day without having people in front breathing out cigarette smoke (much worse than campfire smoke), holding cigarettes venting smoke in the faces of people crowded behind, and throwing used cigarette butts into the city’s drainage system, causing even more problems [Ref 1] [Ref 2]. Anecdotally, I think this has become more of an issue since the Smoke-Free Environments Amendment Act of 2003 came into force. The act made it illegal for people to smoke inside most workplaces and also any cafe’s/restaurants (because they’re other people’s workplaces), but didn’t do much to account for the changes this would cause in outside environments. It forces people to smoke on the streets rather than inside, and it means virtually all restaurants, pubs and cafe’s (not wanting to lose customers to competitors) have pushed their smoking sections onto tables outside. Frequently these outside areas around footpaths are specifically designed with extra shelter from the elements, which helps cigarette smoke to linger for a very long time.
Late last month, a petition was opened on the Wellington City Council’s e-petition page titled Ban on smoking along the city’s “Golden Mile”, with the idea being that smoking on the main central Wellington streets should be completely banned — so far, the only CBD street in which a by-law prevents smoking is Cable Car Lane. As I write this, it has 550 signatures. To add to all of this, however, another e-petition titled Continue to allow smoking along Wellington’s Golden Mile was created by another local today, intending to show support for an opposing view that smoking shouldn’t be banned.
I’m generally skeptical of petitions for various reasons including how they’re sometimes used to claim and campaign for things that don’t match the wording under which people signed. Even in this case I’m still unsure whether I agree with the exact wording. I put my name against the first petition after some days of thought and the lengthy consideration, however, mostly because I think it’s a great issue to actually be discussed.
Restaurant and cafe owners on the main strip probably wouldn’t support such a bylaw, since (as proposed) it’d make it illegal for them to cater to smoking customers when it might not be so for competitors just around a corner. I’m also not personally certain a complete ban on smoking is the best answer, despite liking the idea of strongly encouraging and better facilitating people who want to smoke to give better consideration to those around them without alienating smokers into a reject hole.
Ultimately, I’m simply glad that this issue is being brought up and seems to be arousing interest in the community. Irrespective of whether new by-laws are needed, or just better facilities for and communication about the problems, it needs to be discussed out loud. Presently, I sometimes feel as if I can only get a breath of fresh air by stick my head into the middle of the road because today’s cars seem so much cleaner than today’s cigarettes (albeit not a scientifically-derived assertion on my part). Some people would probably say I’m just overly sensitive, but I don’t think I’m too far out of line to feel a little miffed at the current state of things. I’ll be keen to see what kind of discussions and viewpoints come out of this.
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