There might be a few square feet where this is not true but mostly you can't smoke in public in Berkeley.
I don't own a car. I walk a lot but I ride buses when I grocery shop. My main bus stop is outside a Peets coffee that has two comfortable park benches, facing one another, that makes for a nice mini-commons in the hood. Many gather there. And there are almost always smokers smoking. It's a battle ground. There are 'do not smoke signs' on every possible pole and there are lots of poles. Plus there is a bus shelter and, see above, you can't smoke within 25 feet of a bus shelter.
Whenever, and I mean whenever, I am waiting for a bus and a smoker's smoke drifts into my nostrils and, thus, my lungs, I ask the person to move twenty five feet away.15 minutes ago ·
I always do this. I smoked for a few years when I was young and stupid, so maybe that is why I am so repulsed by cig smoke. It makes me feel unwell to inhale it. Plus, it is illegal.
If you can spot a cop and get their attention, unless they are rushing to a crime-in-action, Berkeley cops will stop and ticket smokers. Well, if Berkeley cops pull over, the smokers disperse. I don't want anyone to get a ticket. I just want to stand at the bus stop smoke free.
And that's the law.
I don't use profanity. I don't speak abusively. I simply ask smokers to move.
Once in a great while, a smoker simply moves. It seems to me that the younger the smoker, the more civil they are when I ask them to move their smoke away from my lungs. And that's how I put it: I say "It is against the law in Berkeley for you to smoke here and your smoke is getting in my lungs. That's why we have the law. Will you please move?"
But quite a lot of smokers become angry and verbally abusive. I know what I am about to write will sound like a racist stereotype but the only smokers who have ever become angry and verbally abusive with me when I have asked smokers to stop smoking have been African American males.
There is a cute, middle-aged French guy who buys coffee at Peets and then steps outside to have a smoke with his coffee most days. When I ask him to put out his smokes, he ignores me and keeps on smoking. He's white. He does not say anything. He just ignores me and goes on smoking. Sometimes I will sit down next to him and start singing the most annoying song I can think of, like the national anthem. This cute Frenchman has asked me 'are you crazy? sitting here singing?' and I say "Why is my behavior more crazy than yours? You are sitting here invading my lungs, ignoring the law, ignoring my polite request for you to stop smoking. I want to make this space uncomfortable for you. It is not illegal for me to sit next to you and sing so that's what I am doing. I am supposed to care about you when you disreregard me? No. I won't cede this public space to you."
Once a woman with Frenchie held her lit cigarette out towards me, getting within an inch of my face, making a gesture that seemed to threaten to burn me with her cigarette. I threw some of my coffee on her cigarette to put out the light that she was threatening to burn me with.
Yeah. I know. Stupid fights. I don't know why I keep taking this stand.
If you don't know Berkeley, it might be completely mystifying. And my behavior is probably a little reckless. But I have noticed this: since Frenchie and his girlfriend threatened to burn me, which was a couple months ago, they have completely stopped smoking at this spot on my corner. This is my block. This is where I live. If everyone cedes the public space to people who disregard the rights of others, we have no public space.
But the African American middle-aged to elderly smoking males are the hardest. They tell me to mind my own business. Then I say 'your smoke in my lungs is my business'. And they say "No it is not your business." I have had African American male smokers tell me to mind my business after I have asked young white homeless kids to stop smoking near the bus stop. The kids move away. And, in the instance I am thinking of, the AA guy wasn't smoking at the time. But he kept yelling at me. And after a few exchanges, he began to demand that I shut up since it was none of my business. But I kept saying "how is this any of your business? And who are you to tell me to shut up? HOw is my talking your business?" and this guy kept yelling at me as the bus came and we boarded and he kept yelling at me after he followed me on the bus.
The bus driver pulled over at the next stop and ordered the guy off the bus. Man, that guy was spitting nickels, so angry that I had 'won'. Keep in mind: I had asked a young street kid with a backpack and a sleeping bag, sitting on the sidewalk in front of a business, smoking in the no-smoke zone to move. I had not asked the abusive, angry black man to do anything. I just had refused to yield to his demand that I 'mind my business'.
After she threw him off, the bus driver asked me what it was about and I told her a little. I said "He wasn't even smoking so how was it his business?" and she told me he is a smoker and that she has told him, many times, that he can't smoke at bus stops.
I know this smoking at bus stops things is small and stupid. I could ask the wrong guy to stop smoking and the guy could flip out and hurt me. I know we have to pick our battles. I know this is a stupid battle. But as long as non smokers put up with smoking in places where there are many 'no smoking' signs. .. . well, I won't do it.
I have campaigned in my building since moving here two years ago
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