In case you don't read Foothill Cities Blog or Curbed LA, Pomona flunked its Clean Air Exam -- the only city in Southern California to get a dunce cap.
Turns out that the invigilator, the American Lung Association, isn't grading us on particulate matter, or heavy metals, or anything like that, but the city's anti-smoking efforts. I guess the ALA only cares about tar and nicotine, not sulfur dioxide or airborne cadmium.
Too often, smoking is a class issue. I don't know enough about the revenue sources of other LA County municipalities, but I note that Baldwin Park -- which I think of as a "working" class city (lord, I hate that term -- like the middle class doesn't work?) -- got an A on the test.
Nonetheless, I just don't see a big campaign to get our citizens to quit smoking as a good use of our very limited city resources, and that goes double for passing (and, more importantly, enforcing) a law preventing people from having a smoke in their usual venues.
Our Fair City has a lot of down-on-their-luck denizens. They know as well as anyone that they shouldn't smoke; they know it's killing them (and that cigs are expensive). Spending city dollars to keep them from smoking seems just plain mean.
3 comments:
From the ALA report, it looks like they were comparing the cities on municipal code ordinances. Although perhaps useful, I can't help but think that cities have multiple ordinances on the books which are never enforced.
Here's a rundown: of the 88 LA county cities examined by the ALA, 40 received F, and of the 34 Orange County cities examined, 29 received F. I always thought Pomona reminded me of Orange County.
Would anyone be surprised to know that the Daily News (the original news story link) is a sister paper of the Daily Bulletin? At least, the Daily Bulletin didn't waste print on this bit of (news?).
There are two big annual ALA Report Cards -- one on tobacco control, the other is on outdoor air pollution.
The outdoor air pollution just measures for ground level ozone and particulates.
I smoke, I'm lower middle class (thats to say people really care about classification). I do my best to not offend others, I don't litter (a lot of smokers in Pomona just throw butts down) and I also on occasion pick up handfuls of butts whenever I'm not in a hurry (especially downtown) and throw them away in the nearest trash receptical. That doesnt excuse my smoking but it helps me keep thinking about quitting. As a neat freak, it's not something a neat freak would want to be part of but somehow I managed to start. I wish people would just throw way their butts after they have properly extinguished them into an actual trash can or outdoor ashtray. That alone would make Pomona better...
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