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# The heat is on for smokers to scram
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/the-heat-is-on-for-smokers-to-scram/
- Published: 2006-08-05T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T19:08:43.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Promenade, #archive-import, Homeless, Homelessness

This past week, Q-line asked: “Do you agree with the anti-smoking measure in Santa Monica? Does the pending smoking ban in virtually all outdoor places represent the wants and will of Santa Monica voters?” Here are your responses: ✆ “I applaud the Santa Monica City Council. Sometimes I think their views are a little bit contentious. But on the smoking I think it’s absolutely wonderful and I wish more people would do that. I’m now living in a facility because I’m disabled and I have to smell the smoke on some of our patients and I don’t like it. I applaud the efforts of the Santa Monica City Council and maybe they could wash it over to a residential care facility, so maybe we can outlaw all the smoking in this town.” ✆ “If you ever stood in line at a theater or a restaurant and had smoke blown at you, you would realize how inconsiderate most smokers are. If it takes laws to make our life safer, then the changes should be made and the laws should finally be passed.” ✆ “It’s good to have laws banning smoking because it smells and it’s messy. But what the people of Santa Monica really want is to do something about the bums. One bum can stink more than a dozen smokers and they leave more of their filth and trash all over the place than any bunch of smokers do. They leave messes all over; they take over the parks. If you try to reason with a smoker, ask them politely, they’ll usually be polite and put out the cigarette. Try talking to a bum and they’ll start ranting and raving, either that or they’re too drunk to even acknowledge that you’re there. I think that getting rid of the bums is a more important thing to do than getting rid of the smokers.” ✆ “On the smoking ban, I can see that people in restaurants, hotels, bars, instead of simply walking outside, they have their cigarette and they need to walk to the middle of the street to have their cigarette. All these ashtrays outside the doors, gotta put them in the street. The police as they slam on their brakes to cite a pedestrian, who knows what evil lurks.” ✆ “I think that the proposed smoking ban is absolutely ridiculous and absurd. It will be very economically damaging for Santa Monica, a city that depends upon tourism from European and Japanese visitors. It will drive business out of the city. It also has a potential to be enforced in a very racist manner because statistics show that minorities smoke more than non-Latino whites. This would be, if enforced, used as a tool to drive minorities and the poor out of Santa Monica, once and for all, and turn the city into a wealthy, white enclave on the order of Thousand Oaks, but with homeless. I think the City Council should seriously reconsider their actions regarding this topic. I also think that the City Council, instead of coming up with new loopy ideas for the sake of seeming ‘progressive’, should just get down to business and just concentrate on efficiently and effectively running the city. I think this focus on innovation for the sake of innovation has just gone way too far. The smoking ban is just an example of how out of touch most of the City Council is with the average person in Santa Monica.” ✆ “I’m grateful for the smoking ban, I wish they would extend it to the park land overlooking the ocean. There’s nothing worse than enjoying the beautiful sunset, enjoying the ocean, enjoying the breeze, and then getting hit in the throat and lungs with acrid smoke. Ugh, it’s awful. So, the ban is good, thank you.” ✆ “I am not a smoker. While I am glad to see that smoking has been banned inside restaurants, bars, clubs, maybe even shops, etc., banning it outdoors is way over the top. The only real problem with smoking outdoors is the trash generated by smokers just tossing their butts. That problem could be solved simply by banning filter-tip cigarettes. Paper and tobacco remnants biodegrade rapidly, but the filters last forever, creating unsightly junk as well as eventually polluting the ocean and damaging sea life, disrupting the food chain. Instead of banning outdoor smoking, ban filter-tip cigarettes and police your butts. Do voters agree? Undoubtedly, many do, given the makeup of the Commi, Fascist, mini-state of Santa Monica.” ✆ “I absolutely support the smoking ban and I think it certainly does reflect the will and the desire of Santa Monica voters. I think everybody knows that they deserve to be free from heart disease and lung cancer, and all of the various health diseases that smoking causes and that exposure to second-hand smoke causes. The employees and establishments and the people who patronize the establishments have a right not to be exposed to second-hand smoke, and I think the voters of Santa Monica will support it. I am very strongly in support of it, and I do think it does represent our will as Santa Monica residents.” ✆ “I’m fully in agreement. I wish we could make even more stringent laws about the smoking outdoors. I sit in a particular location at Santa Monica College where cigarette smoke gets trapped, and I can get no satisfaction. People sit in front of no-smoking signs, in front of open doors, in front of open windows, and right in front of them they smoke. I mean, they don’t care. They will litter the campus with cigarette butts and birds pick them up and it goes into our bay pollution area. Anything even more stringent than the requirements City Council is requesting, I would whole-heartedly endorse. But as a start, I would whole-heartedly endorse these choices.” ✆ “I just want to express my support for the Santa Monica City Council’s effort to pass a smoke-free outdoor ordinance for the Promenade. Me and my friends are very, very happy. It’s the one thing that really hurts our health and it impedes the environment and I look forward to the courage in promoting this for a healthier Santa Monica.” ✆ “I’m here at Santa Monica College, and for 18 years I’ve been breathing in second-hand smoke from employees and students at work, and it’s killing me when you combine it with all the construction that has been going on here since the ’94 earthquake and Southern California air quality. So yes, we need to ban smoking for the non-smoker, for our health and our families.” ✆ “I agree with and support the anti-smoking measures. The executive director and board of directors of Bayside must be a pro-active rather than a re-active partner, and contribute to the health and well-being of Santa Monica. The Main Street Merchants Association must think and act beyond themselves and contribute to the health and well-being of the Santa Monica community.” ✆ “No, I do not agree with the newest smoking ban. True to form, with an election coming up, the City Council has elected to pass another smoking ban. This is supposed to get them re-elected because we’re supposed to believe they’re working hard at improving our lives. Well, Pam O’Connor is the only incumbent who will get my vote. All smokers have been banished. Will we be able to feel safe in the Pico neighborhood? Will the traffic problem be solved? Will the homeless stop using my back-yard as a bedroom? Smoking is not our worst problem. On Sixth and Lincoln, cars block the intersection and I have to wait for two lights to cross. I’m so sick of all the hypocrisy in City Hall. I thought it was illegal to block the intersections, but they do it all the time.” ✆ “I can support financially out-of-work PhDs and MDs to say the exact opposite to the secondhand smoke supposed experts. You are likely to ingest more pollutants from the guy sitting next to you at Starbucks who has had a ham, bacon and cheese sandwich for breakfast. I’m glad the comrades at City Hall take a non-issue and confused the gullible in this town with nonsense while the more important and City Hall-induced problems will remain unsolved: Parking, traffic, bums, low-income housing, bums, City Hall, public employees bums. City government always needs to save the sheep in this town with Big Brother cameras, global warming hysteria, ocean pollution, second amendment hindrances, hate speech like Mel Gibson’s. I wonder if Mel was smoking when arrested.” ✆ “It is indeed a pleasure to learn that my family and friends will once again be able to enjoy living in and indulging ourselves of all the wonderful joys that Santa Monica has to offer as a result of the hopeful smoking ban expected to begin in the near future. It has been a number of years since we have spent a night on the Promenade, shopping and being entertained by the numerous talented performers scattered between Wilshire Boulevard and Broadway because of the smoke-filled air permeating the entire area. It has also been a long, long time since we have gone to the movies because there has always been one rude and obnoxious smoker standing in line of 10 to 20 or more non-smokers waiting in line outdoors to gain entrance to the movie of their choice. Another one of our delights that we have missed for two years or longer is dining at certain restaurants throughout Santa Monica that have patio dining like Coogies on Santa Monica Boulevard. The food is good, but we are tired of eating inside most of the time because the outside area is, even though it’s divided into a smoking and non-smoking area, it is still nauseating when the smoke drifts all over the patio as the breeze flows through the trees. Needless to say, we can’t wait until the law goes into effect.” ✆ “Second-hand smoke does no one any good. Let the selfish, self-centered smokers smoke in their own enclosures only and please, don’t bother the rest of us with the health hazard and discomfort.” ✆ “It will be such a relief to once again enjoy my Santa Monica, of which I have been a resident since 1968\. I am very allergic to cigarettes, and even before I was aware of the health hazards of second-hand smoke, I would politely ask smokers if they would hold their cigarettes in the other hand so the smoke wouldn’t drift into my face because of my allergy, and no matter whether I was in line at a movie or sitting behind a smoker at the Hollywood Bowl, whenever and wherever I politely asked, the smoker was always belligerent, always became very angry, and sometimes very nasty. I was always the one who had to move out of line or leave the concert. It took a long time for the hazards of second-hand smoke to be known. And at least now I will be able to breathe again in public places without sneezing and having watery eyes and a runny nose.” ✆ “I think that anti-smoking laws penalize not only Santa Monica residents, but all our guests and visitors that come here. How restrictive can they get? I’d advise everybody that this is a junk of a council and we need to get them out, smoke them out. It’s just unfair, what they’ve done to the business realm and to our personal lifestyle. You can’t even go out and smoke while you’re having breakfast in the outside in the fresh air. You can’t go to the park because that’s reserved for the dogs. It’s a horrible situation. I don’t know how a council could do something like that. Like all other people that want to restrict their values, they’ll say it’s better for all people who don’t smoke so they won’t have to breathe our air and the smoke that we exude from our cigarettes, which is already proven that it doesn’t affect other people, not to any degree anyway. People all over the world are much smarter than we are. Next, they’re going to restrict our cars and the exhaust from our cars, and everything else. Anyways, I wish you guys luck.” ✆ “I do not agree with the city’s anti-smoking measures. Why keep on picking on smokers? They’re already picked on socially for the nasty habits of a few. They are also taxed to death and those revenues go for social programs not to help those with lung cancer or health problems due to smoking. If all those smokers stop smoking for a few weeks, there would be a panic to get them to start again so jobs could be saved both in the cigarette industry and in all the social programs that are being funded by cigarette taxes. The smoking issue allows the City Council to put important issues on the back burner like homelessness, traffic and parking. Look at the more recent issues before this one: The height of hedges on trees and the squirrels allowing them to take over Palisades Park so it can become a sanctuary for the homeless and the squirrels. What other big issue would they like to tackle next? I say vote them out.” ✆ “It would take a well-seasoned psychologist to explain why members of the human race are set out to destroy themselves. It is not just cigarettes, it’s also booze and other drugs and reckless driving. Any ban that would contribute to a more healthy community is fine with me.” ✆ “I’m happy with the ban. I feel like if you’re a person that’s addicted to anything, then get help and stop getting us involved with your addictions. Smoke, well, it stinks to be honest.” ✆ “I’m calling in to say I completely agree with the City Council and that Third Street Promenade and all other public places in Santa Monica should be smoke-free, especially where I go. I don’t smoke. My daughter is highly asthmatic, whenever she gets around tobacco smoke she just starts wheezing and coughing uncontrollably. This has limited our excursions to the Third Street Promenade and now, with the passing of this law, having it smoke-free, we as a family can now go down the street to any shop and eat at any restaurant without the fear that our daughter getting sick and us having to go home again. So I’m completely in support of smoke-free Third Street Promenade.” ✆ “I support the City Council’s adoption of smoke-free policies. I’m tired of going around smokers and trying to enjoy an outdoor patio when there are smokers nearby. So I think it will be a wonderful thing for all the public places. I’m really looking forward to it.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 5, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/080506.pdf?ref=smdp.com)