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It seems nowadays nobody likes a smoker. You’ve got to stand 20 feet away from buildings before you light up a cancer stick. In some cases, 20 feet would leave you standing in the road, puffing away. Now just being on the street may leave you facing a citation.
Actually, Mayor Tom Bates is focusing on the homeless, not smokers in general. His parking-smoking-homeless plan may earn him some brownie points, the Chronicle reports.
Bates hopes to take on the homeless problem by citing those who light up, because (as he puts it) the homeless “almost always smoke.” However, we’re not sure this is going to solve the city’s problem.
We mean, we’re thinking back to CalSo when that officer dude taught us to seek the source of the problem. Correct us if we’re wrong, but we don’t think that a two-pack-a-day habit put most of these people on the street.
The Chronicle attached a picture to the story with the cutline:
bq. Two young people on the Telegraph Avenue sidewalk could be cited by police under the mayor’s plan — if they were smoking.
Apparently the smoking problem with the homeless is so prevalent that the Chron can’t even get a decent picture of the troublesome smokers in action.
Mayor Bates also wants to crack down on the homeless sleeping on the sidewalks during business hours. He proposes to fund his general homeless program by increasing the parking rate by an extra 50 cents an hour and by adding parking meters to heavily trafficked areas.
As if parking isn’t enough of a problem.
Berkeley’s homeless plan: a new smoking law [SF Chronicle]
Comments:
May 16, 2007 at 7:58 pm
Oh, here’s the link? I am confused. Still writing finals. http://progressiveu.org/132839-ifs-ands-butts-and-the-homeless
May 17, 2007 at 1:27 am
Personally, I think its vile that people smoke in my airspace. Its disgusting, and makes me seriously uncomfortable (I grew up with smokers). This goes double for pot. So this actually sounds like a good idea to me. Why should my day out in the park be ruined by a bunch of kids who think they are being ‘cool’?
May 16, 2007 at 7:57 pm
I wrote on this, too! (see website)
Great minds think alike. Or something.