Regarding the July 26 article “Smoker-only cafes stoke ire of health advocates”: I don’t understand why there is so much objection to a perfectly reasonable accommodation. Being mean to smokers will not cause us to quit. We will quit, or not, for our own reasons. Missionary zeal and a desire to punish those deemed sinners is only annoying.
I was in Taito-ku (Tokyo) when signs forbidding smoking while walking first appeared on the sidewalk. What’s a smoker to do? I ducked into an alley and crouched behind garbage cans. When I came out, I saw two women seated on a concrete divider in a parking lot, a man on a bicycle, and a man standing stock-still on the sign. All were smoking, and all were apparently obeying the letter of the law.
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