This is actually more of an outsider view from a continental european but I've lived a couple of years in Marietta, GA in the 90s and also had quite a few weird encounters regarding smoke already back then (sorry about using the word weird as a foreigner but that's what it really felt to me). The weirdest was definitely some bloke in the neighbourhood who (allegedly) trained his dog to selectively attack smokers who would get onto his property with a burning cigarette. I had actually never seen the dog doing that but the guy proposed me to try and light one up. "Don't worry maaang, I'll hold 'em back." I politely refused.
Round here we'd call him and "inbred booger-eating ......"
(Apologies to any inbred booger-eating ...... who may be reading this, Mr. Banzhaf.)