I was up along E. Short St today, by the employee entrance of the District Court House where they have placed a "smoking station". The photo of the location is shown to the left. It also functions as the access to the parking garage, there fore many people gather there to smoke before entering the building or they come out to take a break. This is their "home away from home" for 8 hours a day, or in the latest lingo, their "place 2".
I realize that it is a bit difficult to see, but try to focus in on the base of the shrubs and the landscaping in the photo to the right. All those little white specks are cigarette butts. Somehow a large number of the smokers have missed the commodious ashtray on the pole.
The smoking ban has been proven to have made the air in our government buildings cleaner and I can tell that it has left the interior surfaces without the customary nicotine film that we are all used to. But, did we have to move the ashtray to the whole outside? How lazy does one have to be to not drop their butts (cigarette) into the supplied receptacle? If they are this lazy about this, then how lazy are they about their jobs? These are the folks serving us, doing the peoples business, so do we really want to know?
I can't just pick on these people, because it happen almost everywhere. And not only near the entrances of public buildings, or private offices, or shopping centers, or etc....etc. Look at the concrete medians at the stop bars in major intersections --massive amounts of discarded butts for all the world to see. If we have the world invited to come see us in less than two years, do we want them to see us with our butts showing everywhere?
Its not all bad though, the front door has a trash can with an ashtray on top and all I saw there was a plastic utensil that had missed it mark.
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