Keep Your Butt Off That Beach!

You know where you can take your filthy smoking habit — outside. No wait, can't smoke in the great outdoors anymore either. Not on those ski slopes in Maine, anyway — and soon, not on Hawaiian beaches, if Kirk Caldwell, a Democrat and State Representative, gets his way. Per the New York Times:

"When you go to the beach, don't you think of being in the sun, feeling the wind, feeling the sun on your skin, being in the water?" Mr. Caldwell said. "And then there's someone sitting next to you smoking — smoke's drifting down into your face."

Yeah, let's pretend that the smoke particles don't immediately get diluted and pretty much absorbed by the billions of gallons of fresh air all around you. Let's pretend that second-hand smoke in the wide-open air is a real problem all of a sudden. Let's pretend that all the legislative energy spent on this non-issue is a good use of taxpayer dollars.

Personally, I'd hate it when, on the beach, I'd have to sit next to gaseous little tyrants like Mr. Caldwell, but that's just me.

Comments

[Poustman]

"Yeah, let's pretend that the smoke particles don't immediately get diluted and pretty much absorbed by the billions of gallons of fresh air all around you."

You would indeed have to pretend that, because it doesn't happen that way. No more than a fart in a movie theatre, or the big guy's B.O. in the subway.

That doesn't mean, however, it is worth legislating necessarily.

[Rogier]

"it doesn't happen that way. No more than a fart in a movie theatre, or the big guy's B.O. in the subway."

Hmm. Odd. You're comparing the great outdoors to a smallish enclosed space.

I would say that very few beachgoers are actually bothered by another beachgoer's second-hand smoke, unless these folks are literally sitting only two or three feet apart.

Further to your point, we could indeed ask what's next. Fines for farters? Arrest records for people who don't slap on enough deodorant?

Personally, I don't like to be near tarts who wear excessive amounts of perfume. But rather than advocating a ban on perfume, I just move further downwind. Problem solved. Too many people go looking for confrontation, happily casting themselves as a victim. That mentality gets me every time.

[Poustman]

I certainly agree that legislation, nanny state, the scolding victim, etc, are ridiculous in this kind of setting. Just getting out of the way is the reasonable thing. However, regarding the beach, I speak from experience, in Maui and Mazatlan, where the seabreezes are definitely blowing. My wife and I have sat downwind from smoky joe's and have certainly gotten solid face and lungfuls. If memory serves, a good 20 feet away was not sufficient to avoid the intermittent yuks.

Doubtless it *is* diluted to an extent, but the difficulty is that all the particles in the exhalation are hit pretty much the same way by any air currents. This means that the air currents blow the cluster of smoky particles around in a fairly consistent mass.

If you stand watching a smoker exhale outdoors in anything up to a moderately breezy setting, you'll see, I think, what I mean. The area of smoke does gradually dissipate, but it takes surprisingly long. Like a drop of ink in a bucket of water, it is diluted, but you can see how there are areas that are less equal than others.

All this to say that the case against this legislation is best made not on whether or not smoke is actually irksome in such a situation, but on whether legislation is the wisest solution even if it *is* a problem.

Please don't even raise the issue of legislating against farting; I don't want to go to jail or have a sore tum-tum.