I have two purposes in writing this letter.

One to request that the Daily News publish an updated list of the non-smoking restaurants in Bowling Green and Warren County. Your stance on the issue was that businesses have the right to choose to be smoking or non-smoking, and we as consumers should choose accordingly.

In order for the citizens to make that informed decision, several of my colleagues and friends have expressed an interest in having the paper publish this list. I volunteered to write the letter expressing this request.

My second purpose is to make a statement to the smokers. Yes, you have the right to smoke. But you don’t have the right to toss that cigarette butt onto the streets of my home, where it will either start a fire in a drought-ridden community, or end up in my water system.

If smoking is OK with you, why in the world can’t you use the ash tray in your car instead of the sidewalk or street in front of someone else’s home? Am I the only one that sees the irony here? It’s OK to do it, but it’s too dirty to keep in your vehicle! Today at lunchtime I watched a professional, I use the term loosely due to her unprofessional conduct, from one of our government offices take her break outside her office, smoke her cigarette, and then quite deliberately take aim and toss her lit cigarette butt into the curb.

This happens somewhere every day, and frankly I’m tired of it. In exchange for smokers’ rights, the taxpayers end up footing the bill for the clean up.

Face it, folks. It’s a health issue. Not an issue of rights and privileges.

Anne Grubbs

Bowling Green

Editor’s note: We are in the process of compiling a list of smoke-free restaurants.

 

Grubbs, Anne (2007, September). Smokers shouldn’t throw their butts on the ground. Bowling Green Daily News. Retrieved from http://www.bgdailynews.com/opinion/letters_to_the_editor/smokers-shouldn-t-throw-their-butts-on-the-ground/article_d0bc2db9-f381-59ee-b496-c17c7bde0927.html