Angry in the Great White North

The town of Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, is considering a ban on smoking outdoors:

A town in Nova Scotia is considering a bylaw that would outlaw smoking outdoors.

Some city councilors in Bridgewater say secondhand smoke is a danger not just indoors, but also at places such as parks, sidewalks, and roads, even while in a car.

Kevin Marlin, the councilor who proposed the bylaw, told CTV News Atlantic that "secondhand smoke, if it's in a public place, will be on the sidewalk in most cases. People are walking right through that."

Let's not get into the true level of risk associated with environmental tobacco smoke, especially outdoors when the exposure is brief and quickly diffused. I swear people think tobacco smoke is like plutonium. A smoker will smoke for years before possibly devleoping cancer, yet otherwise rational people think a brief exposure to second-hand smoke will cause them to sprout tumors.

If smoking was really that dangerous, you'd expect smokers to keel over halfway through their first pack.

What I'm interested in is enforcement. The plan is to let the police ticket people who are caught smoking outdoors:

Deputy Mayor David Walker and Councillor David Mitchell weren't present for the vote. Deputy Mayor Walker has already said publicly that he doesn't think having police "patrol the streets looking for smokers is the best use" of law enforcement.

Bridgewater Police Chief Brent Crowhurst told town council in a memo that enforcement is doable "so long as it's recognized that police resources are deployed based on seriousness and urgency."

If the bylaw was passed, law enforcement would have an idea of the "hot spots" for illegal smoking activity and police it like they do liquor offences, Councillor Marlin said.

The two bridges in town will be the only areas where smoking is allowed. This was not an attempt to offer some small token to smokers. The bridges are actually the property of the province, and the town's by-laws can't be applied on them. Everywhere else is fair game for a ticket.

As inane as this by-law sounds, it could be worse. Yes, really. The city of Calabasas in California passed a similar ordinance against outdoor smoking in 2006. But there was a signficant difference. Enforcement would be by "Private Enforcers". Private citizens sue smokers under the auspices of this by-law. When you see someone smoking in Calabasas, you are supposed to confront them and get his name and address, then write to the city attorney with all the details of the infraction. The civil action is then initiated.

That's right -- the smokers versus the non-smokers. A city passing laws designed to set one part of the population against the other.

Arguably any law does this by designating some behaviour as criminal, but there is a different quality to this one. To set those people who rob banks against those who don't is not likely to be a division that would figure in the lives of most people. But how many people have a parent or a spouse or a child who smokes? I bet there are plenty.

And if you live in Calabasas, those smokers could be sued by a friend or a neighbour or a relative or a complete stranger, just for being seen smoking.

Bridgewater seems to be avoiding this model...for now. But as the police admitted, enforcement of a smoking ban is not a priority. Indeed, I except the only time the police in Bridgewater would confront a person smoking would be if they need a legal excuse to investigate a person they thought was vaguely suspicious.

Smoking ban advocates won't like that. They won't like that one bit. Maybe the Bridgewater by-law is not modeled after the Calabasas version, but now that Bridgewater has covered the entire town under a blanket smoking ban, expect an anti-smoking advocate not happy with the level of enforcement to pursue his own action against a smoker, and perhaps even against the town for not enforcing the by-law rigorously enough and so endangering his health.

And expect the town to be split in two -- those who think such a lawsuit makes sense, and those who think this entire business is absurd.

It's an absurd by-law with potentially absurd consequences.