City of Melbourne to ban smoking

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Max Samuels

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Yesterday while sitting in the Dr's waiting room, waiting to get a new prescription of valium so I can cope with this forum (jokes), they had on Channel 7, and there was a news story featuring some smiling Melbourne City Councilor and her "radical" idea of banning smoking from the streets of Melbourne CBD entirely!

Now, whether or not you are pro/anti smoking in public places, I find the fact that pretty much all the news coverage of this is so one-sided. Not a single journalist even mentioned "well what about all the tax payers and tourists that want to smoke"? Nope - just all smiles like they were performing for NK's Dear Leader.

No smoking inside buildings? Sure.
No smoking in restaurants? Agree.
No smoking in the outside areas of pubs? Not too sure I agree on this one. Some pubs have actually banned eating outside instead of smoking because the demand is so great!
No smoking in some dirty alley in the CBD of Melbourne? Why do we care?

I feel like big brother nanny state is once again extending his/her reach to where it doesn't need to go. And for me it is not really the issue of "smoking" being banned, but just that "something" is being banned (again) by the people that are supposed to run the city (not our lives).

What do people think?
 
The comments I saw online seemed to largely reflect people’s feelings on the juxtaposition between the legal injecting room in Richmond vs being unable to smoke cigarettes in the CBD.......
 
The comments I saw online seemed to largely reflect people’s feelings on the juxtaposition between the legal injecting room in Richmond vs being unable to smoke cigarettes in the CBD.......
That is an interesting comparison.
i must admit I have never really given any thought to injecting rooms (grew up in inner city Sydney - the whole place was basically an injecting room!) But I totally see the arguments for and against.
 
I can understand how it could be a step too far, especially if someone wanted to have a smoke down an alleyway, say. However, I hate walking down the street and having someone in front of me smoking, with the smoke wafting back to me. It's second hand smoke and I'm trapped, because I'm inevitably going the same direction. Truth be told it doesn't happen as often as it used to, I grew up in Hong Kong after all! But it is annoying and potentially deadly... what if I suffered from asthma (which I do, hah)? So I can see the merit in slowly expanding the no-smoking areas to say, the streets, but I don't know where smokers will go on their breaks. Despite the revenue raised, the end goal will always be that cigarette sales eventually come to an end. To facilitate that, you need to take steps along the way. You can't just magically appear at the finish line like Rob Sloan.

It's sort of like the transition to green energy, it'll happen eventually in Australia, but you have to keep making steps for it to progress or it wont happen ever. Do we need it tomorrow, probably not, but reducing our reliance on things we don't have like oil and increasing our reliance on things we'll never run out of like wind/waves/sunlight makes sense.
 
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The problem is far worse when a bunch of people stand around smoking all day day everyday.

Brisbane CBD stinks.

And yes I was a heavy smoker for 25 years.
 
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Good idea but the 10,000(?) of employees/residents in CBD won't quit smoking overnight. Instead, they'll do it in bathrooms, and other places which don't have proper ventilation. Just look at Asia - it's everywhere.
 
My two young daughters and I were on Mt Martha beach yesterday afternoon and a lady 30m away was smoking. I could smell it like she was right next to me.

As a matter of public health, it's not appropriate in any public space and non-smokers ought to be given social powers to ask smokers to refrain. JFK once said that we have the right to breathe air as nature provided it, however smokers seem to think that their needs outweigh those of others and seem to be oblivious to the impacts of their habit.

It's a filthy habit partaken by selfish, stupid types who deserve second class citizen status. Well done to Melbourne City Council for trying this on, however I suspect that signs will be ignored, like the vast majority attached to the entrance of any public building, and enforcement will be virtually impossible.
 
My two young daughters and I were on Mt Martha beach yesterday afternoon and a lady 30m away was smoking. I could smell it like she was right next to me.

Not knowing the beach, I assume it is longer than 30m? Maybe even 100s of metres? Would it have been easy to just move further away?

As a matter of public health, it's not appropriate in any public space and non-smokers ought to be given social powers to ask smokers to refrain. JFK once said that we have the right to breathe air as nature provided it, however smokers seem to think that their needs outweigh those of others and seem to be oblivious to the impacts of their habit.

And? JFK was also an adulterer


It's a filthy habit partaken by selfish, stupid types who deserve second class citizen status. Well done to Melbourne City Council for trying this on, however I suspect that signs will be ignored, like the vast majority attached to the entrance of any public building, and enforcement will be virtually impossible.
Wow - at least you're honest!

I have a similar problem at work where " selfish, stupid types who deserve second class citizen status" bring their young children into the office because they are too dumb/cheap to get daycare, and let their children run around yelling and screaming and basically making everyone's life hell where it (finally!) got to the point that the CEO had to write an email saying "guys, this is a place of work. Bringing your kids in on the off occasion where you can't get someone to look out for them is one thing... but having 100 kids here over school holidays is simply not acceptable".

Similarly, parents that drag their young children into the First Class lounge, or, heaven forbid, actually into First Class itself "seem to think that their needs outweigh those of others and seem to be oblivious to the impacts of their habit".

I guess I'm more a "live and let live" kind of guy :)
 
Not knowing the beach, I assume it is longer than 30m? Maybe even 100s of metres? Would it have been easy to just move further away?



And? JFK was also an adulterer



Wow - at least you're honest!

I have a similar problem at work where " selfish, stupid types who deserve second class citizen status" bring their young children into the office because they are too dumb/cheap to get daycare, and let their children run around yelling and screaming and basically making everyone's life hell where it (finally!) got to the point that the CEO had to write an email saying "guys, this is a place of work. Bringing your kids in on the off occasion where you can't get someone to look out for them is one thing... but having 100 kids here over school holidays is simply not acceptable".

Similarly, parents that drag their young children into the First Class lounge, or, heaven forbid, actually into First Class itself "seem to think that their needs outweigh those of others and seem to be oblivious to the impacts of their habit".

I guess I'm more a "live and let live" kind of guy :)
I agree with everything you say here however you suggest that I should give way to the smoker even though she was impacting on me, not the other way around. Why's that?
 
Bring it on, I'm done with the stink and inconvenience of walking through clouds of filth. You see those "no smoking within 5 metres" signs outside my building, routinely ignored. I feel the same way about spitting, poo-jogging, littering and staring at your phone while walking. This latter phenomenon, which is endemic, is just getting out of control. People get off trains staring at their phones, wander in the direction of the exit and then struggle to put one foot in front of the other while 50 other people are backing up behind them! It's the new smoking.
 
Bring it on, I'm done with the stink and inconvenience of walking through clouds of filth. You see those "no smoking within 5 metres" signs outside my building, routinely ignored. I feel the same way about spitting, poo-jogging, littering and staring at your phone while walking. This latter phenomenon, which is endemic, is just getting out of control. People get off trains staring at their phones, wander in the direction of the exit and then struggle to put one foot in front of the other while 50 other people are backing up behind them! It's the new smoking.

I'm a jogger myself and jog in a straight line. Most walkers (probably unknown) meander somewhat, but the ones with a fixation to the phone whilst walking does get on my quince as they are all over the shop.

As an aside, what is poo-jogging? I am a little afraid to ask however.
 
As an aside, what is poo-jogging? I am a little afraid to ask however.

Oh you haven't caught up with this yet? It's fascinating. They say running can bring it on (hopefully not runny though!) :eek: 😂 For me, it's caffiene. By that second cup in the morning, I'm regular I can tell you. These two in Oz, and a few more cases in the US:

Roxy Jacenko dumps on new poo jogger theory

 
Anything Roxy Jacenko related should just be diverted straight to the trash bin (or playground) :)
 
Oh you haven't caught up with this yet? It's fascinating. They say running can bring it on (hopefully not runny though!) :eek: 😂 For me, it's caffiene. By that second cup in the morning, I'm regular I can tell you. These two in Oz, and a few more cases in the US:

Roxy Jacenko dumps on new poo jogger theory


Oh, I feared that could be the answer.
 
Can't wait for the council to ban smoking on our city street. Bring it on.

Every day from around 0830 to 16;30 there is a group of smokers from the office building next door standing under my window puffing away. The group varies from 3-4 up to 15 and the members change throughout the day coming and going. They drop hundreds of butts on the ground that get swept and washed into the drain system and poison fish in the bay.

Amazingly this habit which is so driving them and cruel to prevent them from participating in, goes away when it is raining or very cold. They just disappear and survive without puffing!

It leaves me with the only days I can have a window open as very cold, windy or pouring with rain. Impossible to open the windows on a day when it is warm and sunny.

The most perverse thing in the whole scenario is why they are outside my window. That their management has banned smokers standing in front of their own building (where there are no openable windows and 24/7 air-conditioning) because people standing around not working and blowing smoke on passers by outside their own building "is not a good look for the company".
 
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That their management has banned smokers standing in front of their own building

And this buck passing the problem to someone else is annoying. Your building management should be addressing the issue and speaking to their employer because they are polluting your work environment.

As for rain, I find smokers usually just take over a non-smoking area that is undercover and whinge that they'll get wet. Well tough. You need to wash anyway, you stink!
 
Gone are the days when we could trust people to use their own discretion. Now we have to assume no one can smoke in public responsibly.
 
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