A recent addition to the smoking ban laws that have rippled through major cities was enacted in White Plains, N.Y., this week, taking away a smoker’s right to light up in parks, plazas, playgrounds and trails, the Lower Hudson Valley News reports.
Even non-smokers have voiced their opinion about the law’s intrusion on personal liberties. “I think that people who want to smoke should be allowed to smoke in parks,” Max Gaujean, a non-smoker, told the media outlet.
Smokers who violate the new law will face fines of $25 for their first offense, $50 for a second and $75 for any citations thereafter, CBS New York reported.
Barry H. Colvin of the Lower Hudson Valley News argues that lawmakers are enacting laws based on personal value judgments, and working to impose those values on others through law.
“As far as I know, you are still allowed to smoke in your own home,” he wrote in a recent column, “although that liberty may well be on a short rope as well.”
According to the Surgeon General’s office, following California’s 1998 decision, more than half of the States have now enacted public smoking bans.
Too much.
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