Let’s just get this out of the way right up front: Nobody on the planet is going to try and say “You know, smoking is actually good for you!” Even the cigarette companies aren’t that stupid. 

But it might be time for non-smokers to realize that as much as they might hate it, smoking is, in fact, legal and they don’t, in fact, own the entire planet.

Apparently, the town of Belmar, New Jersey is the latest burg to consider banning smoking on its beaches and boardwalks as opposed to corralling puffers into designated smoking areas. But more than a few people are crying “foul.” 

Unless and until the federal government — having wussed out on this issue for years — is willing to step up to the plate and say, “You know what? Smoking is deadly and we have cow-towed to tobacco lobbyists for years — while raking in huge bucks by sin-taxing tobacco-related products — but we are now ready to put the good of the citizenry above our own greed and ban cigarettes entirely,” we have to acknowledge that smokers have rights too.

Yup, they have the right to fill their lungs with deadly carcinogens. Why? Because it’s completely legal. 

Over the past decade, smokers have seen the area in which they can partake in their deadly habit shrink exponentially. First, the occasional bar or workplace would ban smoking. Then entire states made it illegal to smoke inside buildings. Now, some towns want to take things to the next level by making it illegal to smoke anywhere within their boarders. In some states, it is now completely with the right of an employer to fire an employee for smoking… within their own home! 

Non-smokers have spent years campaigning for their rights, but at what point do their cancer stick-addicted brethren get to say, “Hey, we let you reclaim 95 percent of the world… but come on, fair is fair!” 

Interestingly, many consider laws such as the one being proposed in Belmar a nearly unenforceable policy given budget restraints. And while that town’s Mayor cites “littering” as the main reason behind the ban, he fails to address how cigarette butts cast aside on the beach are any worse than, say, Subway sandwich wrappers. Is a food ban next? Wouldn’t cigarette butts be covered under a “no littering” policy? And if that policy is not being enforced, again, who will enforce the “no smoking” ban? 

To be clear: Nobody — including most smokers — is saying that it’s a habit that should be encouraged. But at the same time, there are limits to how much those who partake in a completely legal habit should be punished. In Belmar, New Jersey, it just might be that drawing a literal line in the sand and saying “you may not smoke here” will be the straw that breaks Joe Camel’s back.

They say that wherever you go, there you are. And over the years, it’s also proven true that wherever you are, there too exist the world’s worst drivers.

 

“New Jersey drivers are the worst in the world!” declare those who frequent the garden state’s byways, while those traversing the highways of Pennsylvania claim that state holds bragging rights to the claim.

 

But what few ever dare to ask the bad drivers who populate our country is… where are y’all in such a hurry to get to? You. Yes, you, the one parked in the fire lane in front of a store just long enough to dash in for a few items. Or the man driving on the shoulder past those of us waiting in line at the toll booth only to then try nosing your way back in. (Better still, having the nerve to get pissed when people won’t let you!)

 

What the hell makes your time so much more valuable than ours?

 

I witnessed what has to be the height of vehicular hubris last week when a man pulled up to the sidewalk in front of a Starbucks and sat in his car, engine idling (what energy crisis?) while his passenger dashed in for a latte., both of them completely ignoring the gigantic “No Parking” sign less than two feet away. The best part? The car had handicapped plates, meaning they could have taken the very legal, very empty parking spot specifically reserved for their use about five feet away.

 

I’m sorry, sir, tell me again… what was it that makes you so special?

 

I can only assume he was related to a man I’d met a few days earlier while coming out of a theater. As I and many other mere mortals attempted to exit, a rather large man — dressed in a crisp white suit, wearing more bling than a posse of rap stars  and clasping the hand of a wife whose breasts had obviously cost more than many people make in a year — literally tried to push me aside. When I stood my ground, the man elbowed me and said, “Look, I gotta get outta here and get to my car before the traffic gets bad, so stay the hell outta my way.”

 

Only he didn’t say “hell.”

 

“I’m sorry,” I replied. “I’ll bet nobody else in this theater is hoping to beat traffic. You’re a very, very wise man.”

 

The guy — did I mention he was ginormous? — stopped for a moment and I swear, I thought I was about to get punched. Instead, he settled for a few well-rehearsed (if not entirely original) compound-adjectives involving mothers and sexual acts. Because, really, what intelligent reply could he possibly have summoned? And profanity is, of course, the last recourse of the intellectual… which made it his first option.

 

Upon reaching the parking lot just as the man was pulling out, I can’t say that I was at all surprised to see that the vehicle was a sports car, or that he pulled into traffic without looking at the pedestrians he’d nearly run down.

 

After all, he was obviously a very important man with very important places to go, just like so many of the people he would be jostling for position with on the roads.