I recently moved from Beverly Hills and see from this site (thank you) that they are voting to ban sale and usage of e-cigarettes... basically equating them to tobacco cigarettes. I can't post outside of this forum yet, though, so sorry if this is unwelcome here. Maybe it will give people a few chuckles or an argument to bring with them to the Council meeting tonight. Cheers.
If the Beverly Hills City Council is really concerned about public health by legislating what (in addition to tobacco smoke) can be exhaled into the environment and possibly ingested/inhaled by innocent bystanders, then you'd think they would draw the connection with other candidates for their legislative prowess that are far more dangerous and disconcerting than vaporized e-liquid. These things would include but not be limited to:
The council should really look into these issues at a minimum before attacking the one technology that has liberated so many smokers and alleviated the dangers to so many non-smokers. If this is truly a public health issue, and not some sort of commercially driven anti-competitive "conspiracy", then the moratoria should be on sick people in public places, farting, fertilizing your lawn, and cars in addition to PV devices. Let's not leave the truly deserving out of such legislation.
Izzy
PS. The above argument is an example of pointing out the fallaciousness of a line of reasoning (logic) through a technique called reductio ad absurdum. That means you follow the logic and show that it leads to absurd conclusions. In this case the conclusions aren't really absurd, though, just incredibly impractical.
If the Beverly Hills City Council is really concerned about public health by legislating what (in addition to tobacco smoke) can be exhaled into the environment and possibly ingested/inhaled by innocent bystanders, then you'd think they would draw the connection with other candidates for their legislative prowess that are far more dangerous and disconcerting than vaporized e-liquid. These things would include but not be limited to:
[*=1]People with contagious diseases doing any kind of exhaling at all. In fact, should those people venture out into public, they should be arrested for doing anything other than INhaling. Anything else would be assault at best, attempted murder at worst.
[*=1]People with the common cold would be covered under this ordinance, as well. Breathing on public transportation should be considered multiple counts in either of these cases.
[*=1]Gassy people. It is not true that "whoever smelt it, dealt it". In fact, subjecting innocent bystanders to the nuisance created by public farting should be a misdemeanor, following the BH City Council's logic.
[*=1]As a corollary to this last one, any vendors, restaurants or supermarkets selling beans should be given 2 weeks to sell off their existing inventory and be subject to a fine of $1,000 per infraction thereafter.
[*=1]Sticking with the scatological theme: every year Beverly Hills residents decide that spreading manure all over their lawns is a decent thing to do in order to generate a lush, green showpiece. Setting aside the issue of the massive water waste associated with this practice (it's far worse than washing your car during a drought), anyone who gets around by walking... or even has their car windows rolled down, is repeatedly assaulted as they run the gauntlet of Beverly Hills. In fact, when the season is "on", it is difficult to breathe properly at all when traversing Beverly Hills residential neighborhoods due to being olfactorily assaulted by clouds of methane gas and anything else that is carried on the air after being passed through the digestive tract of cows and horses.
[*=1]Cars. How could they have missed this one?!? This is perfectly aligned with their logic. Not only that, but there is plenty of data supporting the fact that automobile exhaust contains carcinogens and is a nuisance. It's a little disingenuous to acknowledge this in the current legislation to "do better" while seeking to entirely exclude and eliminate a class of devices with the same exact effect on a different source of pollution. In fact, it could be argued that what mufflers and "cleaner" gasoline haven't been able to satisfactorily reduce in 40 years can be entirely eliminated in the case of PV's vs. cigarettes. It's as if the State decided to ban the sale of Prius's and not allow them to be driven. In addition, who will be silly enough to tell me that car advertisements aren't appealing to kids? Therefore, Beverly Hills BMW, Acura, Rolls Royce and Bentley dealers should be given 2 weeks to sell existing inventory. After that, they either sell the Tesla, bicycles, Razor Scooters, or the ever-popular Segway or face the consequences of their actions.
The council should really look into these issues at a minimum before attacking the one technology that has liberated so many smokers and alleviated the dangers to so many non-smokers. If this is truly a public health issue, and not some sort of commercially driven anti-competitive "conspiracy", then the moratoria should be on sick people in public places, farting, fertilizing your lawn, and cars in addition to PV devices. Let's not leave the truly deserving out of such legislation.
Izzy
PS. The above argument is an example of pointing out the fallaciousness of a line of reasoning (logic) through a technique called reductio ad absurdum. That means you follow the logic and show that it leads to absurd conclusions. In this case the conclusions aren't really absurd, though, just incredibly impractical.
