Nonsmokers sick of attitudes

It would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. I guess it’s the nicotine that addles the brain.

Now, once again, we have a (presumed) smoker (Billie A. Barron in “Time to be a ‘brave soldier,’” Community Commentary, Saturday) telling us that if someone is smoking where we nonsmokers want to go — even if it’s unlawful to smoke there — if we were just “brave” and “intelligent,” we’d know the answer is that we should go around them. In other words, “I’m smoking here, and I don’t care if it harms you or is illegal; if you don’t like it, you can go somewhere else.”

We’re not going to be intimidated by tobacco industry propaganda or the loud, irrational insults or name-calling of smokers anymore.

Long before the California Department of Health Services defined tobacco smoke (first- and secondhand) as a “toxic air contaminant” (i.e., poison gas), “Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary” (10th edition) said that nicotine is, “[A] poisonous alkaloid ¼ that is the chief active principle of tobacco and is used as an insecticide.” If an adult wants to put something like that in their body, that’s their choice, but we nonsmokers are no longer going to let them force us to inhale it into ours.

The law in Calabasas, Santa Monica, Baldwin Park, Burbank, Beverly Hills — soon South Pasadena (and no doubt many more cities to follow) — says that tobacco smoking is a public nuisance. “Law.com” defines a nuisance as “the unreasonable, unwarranted and/or unlawful use of property, which causes inconvenience or damage to others, either to individuals and/or to the general public. . . . ” Unquestionably, smoking is a nuisance; and that’s the least of its ills.

My experience is that most smokers are considerate and have been obeying the law. But then there are scofflaws who like to insult nonsmokers; who feel that they own the city and have the right to annoy and imperil other people any time or any place they want. I guess when one has no rational arguments, name-calling is the “logical” place to go; I guess insult is the last refuge of the addict. As for entitlement, I would say this to the insulting insulters: History, direction, law and the overwhelming majority of people all say, “You are the ones who must change, not us.”

By the way, Albertsons has now posted on its doors, the signs that the May 15 ordinance required them to post by June 12: “No smoking within 20 feet.” La Vergne Rosow (“Public must be protected from smoke,” Community Commentary, July 14) is owed a debt of gratitude for making Albertsons acknowledge and obey the law.

ROBERT PHIPPS is a Burbank resident.