The sun is shining, breeze is warm, an the air smells like George Burns' Ass.
This is what I come across when I exit/enter my office building on a daily basis. I thought I'd write about this after I had some time to think about the issue, and cool down.
For those of you who are not from Ontario, you may not know that we have some pretty strict smoking laws in place to protect non-smokers from inadvertently inhaling second-hand smoke toxins while in public areas. In brief, the law forbids smoking within 9 meters of building entrances, and must not have an overhead shelter. All entrances must display a non-smoking sign.
In an effort to encourage smoking within designated smoking areas, the building management at my office, has created a patio-style smoking area with seating and wind shelter. Unfortunately, this area is not used as frequently as it should be.
Instead of using this designated smokers-section, you find that smokers more frequently use the sheltered entrance area as their preferred smoking area. The wonderful thing about this sheltered entrance area is that it holds smoke very well, leaving us smoke-sensitive workers to share in the splendour of second hand smoke. I frequently find myself fighting off headaches due to second-hand smoke. I have an allergy to smoke, and asthma that are both aggravated each time I enter and exit the office.
The office management has taken steps to try and deter smokers who choose to smoke in law-prohibited areas. The office has sent out emails, and has asked office patrons to move to the designated smoking area Unfortunately, the smokers ignore these requests and continue to infringe on the health and happiness of their fellow coworkers by smoking within 5 feet of the entrance.
I have asked coworkers in the past to head to the smoking section instead of smoking within the confined of the pre-designated smoke-free areas. Although my coworkers oblige when I ask, they retun to the designated smoke-free areas for their next nic-fix.
Normally, my reaction to resolving issue that affect me would be to request action from the parties involved (which I've already done), and if results are not achieved, I'd escalate the issue to the local authority, and finally to the legal authority. Unfortunately, I don't feel the local authority nor the legal authorities will action my request.
In the past, I've made complaints to the local smoking authorities for smoking infractions that adversely affected me. To my dismay, the local authorities felt that although the rules were being broken, they weren't being broken "that bad" so the were left with a warning.
I would compare smoking in non-smoking areas to bringing peanut butter to an elementary school. The happiness of the individual is trumped by the health of another. The problem is that people really aren't taking the negative affects of smoking seriously. There are coalitions to save smoking and right to choose parties looking to keep smoking in public areas. You don't see coalitions for peanuts in schools, or free the peanut campaigns. The affects are the same, but not as immediate. Why are we so blind to ignore these facts?
My hope now is that someone reads this and understands that these smoking laws are not meant to inconvenience smokers for the sake of inconvenience, but rather are meant to protect the smoke sensitive individuals like myself.
