insight into crazy

Twice in recent weeks I have gotten into stupid arguments at the bus stop, the one right on my corner.

There is a Peets Coffee at the corner of Shattuck & Kittredge. In front of the coffeeshop are two large benches, forming a 't', then the bus shelter, then the street.  The sidewalk is very wide. There are many posts and lampposts. There are no smoking signs on every posts, on the doors of each business, on each bench and on the bus shelter.  Smokers seem to think the benches were put there to create a public smoking lounge.

There is a local ordnance against smoking with 25 feet of any door or window. It is also against the law to smoke within 25 feet of any bus shelter. So it is illegal to smoke in the nice little plaza formed by the two benches.

These are comfortable benches, too.  It's a nice little public spot.

And smokers very often hang out there.  It's only a handful of people who smoke there. There can't be many because the smokers look familiar to me.  I see the same people smoking there.

In the two years I have lived here, I have often asked smokers to stop smoking, pointing to the no smoking signs and asking them to obey the law and respect my lungs.  Some of them will put out their smokes. Some will get up and move down the block until I get on the bus.

And a few ignore me.

I have actually tried to wave down passing police cars to ask them to give the smokers tickets.

This is not just my anti-smoking campaign.  The smoking den on this corner bothers many.

Twice since Xmas I have asked people to stop smoking and someone else, someone not smoking, has gotten involved and told me to mind my own business.

And, each time, I have pointed out that if someone smoking is none of my business, then my telling someone not to smoke is not the business of the person yelling at me.

Once, I asked some teenagers to stop smoking.  Lately, lots of traveling teens have been hanging out at this corner to panhandle.  I think 'traveling' teens tend to congregate over on Telegraph, near people's park. And it seems to me that there are more teen beggars on the streets of Berkeley since San Francisco voters passed a law making it illegal to sit on the sidewalk or lie on the sidewalk but that might be my imagination.

The begging teens bug me.  They are usually in small packs, often have dogs and always seem to be smoking cigarettes. It is hard for me to believe anyone gives kids money 'for food' when the kids obviously spend money on cigarettes.

Anyway.  A couple weeks ago, I asked a couple kids who were smoking near the bus stop to stop smoking. One kid looked around, after I had pointed out there within ten feet of where we stood there were at least ten no smoking signs, and said plaintively, "Where am I supposed to smoke?"

"No here," I said with a shrug.  There really isn't anywhere outdoors in downtown Berkeley where it is legal to smoke because smoking is not allowed within twenty five feet of doors and windows.  This is a downtown retail area. There really isn't anywhere on any sidewalk downtown that is not within a door or window.  Alongside my building, there are a couple stretched with no doors for awhile but there are windows to homes on the second floor that are less than twenty five feet above the sidewalk. 

There is a park in front of city hall, a couple block away, where there are no doors and windows.

I wasn't here when the no smoking near doors and windows law was passed but I venture to guess that the intent of this law is to make it difficult for smokers to be able to smoke near any place there might be other humans nearby.

Whatever.

The smoking scoff laws who smoke on my corner even though they know they aren't supposed to don't care about my right to not have their cigarette smoke in my lungs so I have little tolerance for their 'right' to smoke.  I have made a policy decision that every time I see smokers smoking at my bus stop, I will ask them to stop.  I am polite.  I am right. Am I getting involved in something that is not my business? Some might say so. To such someones, I say that my lungs inhaling someone else's secondhand smoke, coupled with the fact that the law is on my side, gives me standing to object.

When I asked the kids to stop smoking, they didn't put their smokes out but they moved to the edge of the sidewalk and as far from the bus stop as they could go and still be on the sidewalk.

And then an old man started yelling at me to mind my business.