Smoking bothers my eyes and it gives me a headache but this sounds extreme. Too far?
CBS News correspondent Jay Dow reports that New York City is now taking the war against tobacco a step further with a new law that goes into effect tomorrow, banning smoking outdoors - at beaches, boardwalks, parks, and pedestrian plazas.NOTE FROM JOHN: Yikes, I'm going to disagree with Chris about smoking laws - whodathunk I could make him look like a smoke lover ;-) But I have to say, I'm rather sick and tired of walking down the sidewalk and having to smell the smoke of someone a good 30 feet in front of me. Ditto for the beach, it's disgusting - the smoke wafts a good 30 feet, choking everyone in its path. Or never being able to sit outside at a restaurant or a cafe without the person at the next table huffing and puffing away as if I'm not in the middle of eating two feet away from them when I am. I was sitting outside at a restaurant a few weeks ago for a friend's birthday, the smokers were sitting around the corner, we couldn't even see them, and their smoke was bothering us. Smoking is a nasty habit that I don't necessarily have a problem with if people want to do it in the privacy of their own home. But in public, where I have to breathe it, no way. Your right to smoke stops when you force me to inhale it against my will.
The ban is not exactly universally popular.
"It's not fair, Ya know. I'm a smoka. That's my choice. I smoke.It's not gonna make me stop," said New Yorker Frank Zieran.
New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, a former smoker, pushed for the law that aims to drastically reduce, if not eliminate exposure to second hand smoke.
