Harvey Milk said that if you can clean up the dog shit you can become mayor of San Francisco. He went on to pass one of the first poop and scoop bylaws in North America, something that has become a bylaw in every major metropolitan area since.
Today the Vancouver Parks Board will vote to ban smoking from city parks. As a reformed smoker I’m all for the ban but I can see the drawbacks to it.
Smokers always complain their civil rights are being infringed on whenever they lose one more place to smoke. This would be a compelling argument if they weren’t protesting their right harm themselves, pollute the air and feed the coffers of big tobacco companies. Smokers are like the tar sands in that respect.
The first time I quit smoking for more than five years was when San Francisco proposed banning smoking in bars. I was tending bar in the Castro and had a cigarette burning in an ashtray next to my register like a celebrity guest on Matchgame.
Any smoker will tell you that once you’re relegated to the outdoors, you become a target for people bumming smokes. That was what finally drove me to quit. I knew if I had to leave my bar to have a cigarette, not only would I be losing money, but I would be getting into arguments with people I didn’t want to give a cigarette to.
Ironically I started smoking again in Toronto where you were still allowed to smoke. I lit up for the shear novelty of it and wasn’t able to stop for another five years.
People have different reasons for smoking. Most people enjoy how it feels in your lungs, but there are some people that genuinely rely on smoking as a coping mechanism. I don’t think it’s appropriate for someone to lose their job because they smoke, but I don’t see anything wrong with limiting where they can do it.
What does worry me about this bylaw is if this is the city’s passive-aggressive way of cutting back on dope smoking on the beach. If the reason for the ban is pollution not lifestyle choices as they claim, why don’t they start a campaign: “Take your trash with you”?
I’m not going to endorse marijuana one way or another but like it or not, marijuana is part of Vancouver culture—it’s the only thing keeping us on the map in some parts of the world.
Do we really want to see more law enforcement on Wreck Beach than there already is? Last year the cops made my friends and I show them our water bottles to prove it wasn’t vodka. I mean, if you can’t get naked and let it all hang out on Wreck Beach, where can you?
My advice to smokers is this: if you want to smoke in public spaces clean up after yourselves. As for banning smoking in parks, I say we do it but leave pot alone.
Even if the ban does pass, they won’t enforce it. Look at any number of dogs on the beach. But I’ll take a dog over a cigarette butt any sunny day of the week.
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