This is good. It's about time smokers fought back against this puerile nonsense.

Hope the ban passes. Smoking is the puerile nonsense. Give it up! Care for your body and your neighbors.

Don't tell me what to do.

NonSmoker Tom- Maybe worry about what you are doing. I am sure you posses behaviors that the rest of us would find unbearable and foolish, what with being human and all. Most of us have the good manners to not care so much about how you choose to live, and therefore don't feel the need to demostrate our presumptive attidtude through prostilyzation or enforcing our 'education' on you. You are not the arbiter of what is best for others or their neighbors.

For your next trick, I assume you will be lecturing us all about slowing down on the freeway, or the health benefits of a macrobiotic diet. If you want to drive a Prius and graze off the front lawn, that's great, I'm happy for you. Some of us are going to make other choices, and that's ok, too.

I'm looking forward to the ban passing so I won't have to walk my son through smoke clouds to get to various businesses downtown. Not to mention, it might be nice to sit outside at some of these patios with my kid as well! Not an option currently.

@Oscar's Mom: You WILL have to walk through even MORE clouds now that smokers are banned from private outdoor patios, and now must pretend to walk to a destination on the same sidewalks you and your son walk on. I'm not a smoker, but this is truly a stupid ordinance.

Nothing like the taste of a fine cigarette, cigar or pipe after a good meal. The sensation can be euphoric, as well as a great stress reliever and good weight controller.

For all you prejudice people out there that think second hand smoke kills, your dead wrong. If that was the case my brothers and sister would all be dead at the rate our parents smoked. Moderation is the key to all good things.

Interesting facts that goes against the grain of popular thought.

Mme Jeanne Calment, who was listed as the world's oldest human whose birth date could be certified, died at 122. She had begun smoking as a young woman. At 117 she quit smoking (by that age she was just smoking two or three cigarettes per day because she was blind and was too proud to ask often for someone to light her cigarettes for her). But she resumed smoking when she was 118 because, as she said, not smoking made her miserable and she was too old to be made miserable. She also said to her doctor: "Once you've lived as long as me, only then can you tell me not to smoke." Good point! [USA Today, "Way to go, champ," 10/18/95].

When Mme. Calment died at 122 in l997, the new longevity champ became 116-year-old Marie-Louise Meilleur, of Canada. Mme. Meilleur had chain-smoked all her adult life (as her grandson said, "She always had a cigarette dangling from her lips as she worked,"--AP, 8/15/97, reported in Miami Herald, p. 2A). She did give up smoking, however, when she was nearly 100.

Search on Bing.com for more famouns Centurion smokers.

Oscar's Mom : You can't sit outside at some of these patios with your kids , they are for adults 21 and over. All you will do now is to walk with your kids through a lot of smokers in the street, or in the parking lots if you want to park your car , because this is what the nonsense ordinance does; move smoke from selected and dedicated places like the open patios where people have free choice to patronize if they are 21 or older ( NO CHILDREN ALLOWED ) to the public streets where children and non smokers are !!! You're getting the exact opposite of what you want, isn't that funny?

Hi Oscar's Mom,

I'm downtown almost every day, but I never see the clouds of smoke that you are talking about. But your imaginary clouds will soon become a reality thanks to this incredibly stupid ban.

I look forward to seeing you and your son in the 21 and older only patios that only serve alcohol. It's so nice to see that you have no problem with taking your under age son to 21 and over bars and buying him drinks! :)

What a stupid decision! Once again the authorities have confirmed their complete lack of common sense and ability to think. Why are you so obsessed with banning smoking?!! Look at your obessity, at your junk food and drinks, look at your young zombies, spending their lives behind the screens, smoking pot and drinking disguisting soda, look at your medications, at your unhealthy life styles, at thousand and thousand bad things in your life and RELAZ ON SMOKING ALREADY, there zillions of worse things in your life, JUST RELAX!!