Most often cited in the move to tobacco-less environments is the health hazard of second-hand smoke and its potential for liability lawsuits brought by victims.
While second-hand smoke in confined spaces is obviously hazardous, the bans increasingly prohibit tobacco use in open areas as well.
Health and liability reasons can't be used as excuses for those bans, however. Exhausts of vehicles using private and public parking lots produce much higher hazardous emissions, yet aren't on the banned lists.
While private organizations are well within their rights to totally ban just about any activity on their premises, public agencies tread on thin ice when they exclude smokers from sidewalks, lawns and other open public grounds.
When public agencies employ such ham-fisted tactics, the reasons have their basis in political correctness--not health or liability. Second-hand tobacco smoke, after all, dissipates immediately in the open air and doesn't harm anyone.
Oh, sure, the public agencies can point to their other unchallenged bans on the use of drugs and alcohol. But wait. Those substances are banned because they are either illegal or frequently produce bizarre and disruptive behaviors. Tobacco, however, isn't illegal and doesn't alter behaviors.
Tax monies are used to buy and maintain public properties. Taxpayers should have the right to use their open public areas as long as those uses are legal and safe.
Taxpaying smokers in open public areas only hurt themselves, not others. (11 JULY 1999)
