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Google"It looks hideous, terrible," Knapp said during Tuesday's city council session describing what he said was the littering of the area with cigarette butts left by the weekend crowds.
Noting that "there are some really smart people sitting round the table here" he called on fellow council members to assist in coming up with a solution to the problem.
What used to be a simple remedy for the situation, an ash tray, is not that simple any more as the result of Iowa's new Smokefree Air Act, Le Mars City Attorney Joe Flannery pointed out. Municipalities such as Le Mars where smoking is banned in government buildings, Flannery advised, could be in violation of the Smokefree measure should ash trays be used at these locations.
Flannery said he will pursue the matter while other city officials agreed to question Iowa League of Municipalities officials regarding possible solutions used elsewhere.
Also being "looked into" is the use of signage specifying how far from smokers must be from a building.
Possible solutions for the problem were presented by council members.
Perhaps, Councilman John Rexwinkel suggested, sand in a garbage can for ice control during winter months would meet the needs at that time of the year.
Knapp, not to be outdone by his fellow council member, presented yet another possibility. "What about a planter full of sand, perhaps with one rose," he offered, as a stand-in ashtray.
Discussion on the situation is expected to continue at a future council session.
Note: The nature of the Internet makes it impractical for our staff to review every comment. If you feel that a comment is offensive, please
I totally agree, as a longtime Central avenue walker, the mess in front of the bars now is so nasty! Cigarette & cigar butts all over the sidewalk. Obviously people think our streets are their ashtray. And to see people congregate on the streets during smoke time is disgusting. Thanks Chet!
It is no different than someone throwing a cigarette out the car window....Is that not littering?.....maybe we should be getting these people for littering in front and rears of bars also?......
Before the mess and riff/raff was inside the bar, now it is outside the bar, Maybe while they are outside smoking the smokers could come up with an idea on the crosswalks on Hwy. 3
Some people are never satisfied. While I agree that the sidewalk is full of nasty cigarette butts and seeing "people congregate on the streets during smoke time is disgusting". Lets remember there wouldn't be that mess if we as smokers could just smoke inside the bar; where we once use to put our cigarette butts into an ash tray that would continuously be thrown in the garbage by the bartender. Whatever though, I'm sure this will be another story that starts up arguments full of people's opinions. I'll continue to smoke and put my cigarette's out where I feel necessary and convient to myself, be in right outside the door of the convention center or a container designated for my butts or out my car window! :)
Geez, smokers are damned if they do, and damned if they dont! While I don't care for smoking, these people have rights, and they have been taken away. Provide ashtrays outside on the streets, eliminate butts on the ground. Knapp states above that they have some "really smart people sitting around the table". Really? Provide somewhere for them to discard the butts, and eliminate the problem. Doesn't seem that difficult to me!
Come on! People can learn how to throw away their butts or dispose of them. Walking with my children in a stroller down Central/Plymouth street has become a tobacco tour of people half drunk hanging out of the bar smoking. Now we get a cloud of smoke to walk through as well, not to mention wading through the thousands of butts.
Just goes to show how rude and disrespectful SOME smokers can be. You (the smokers) have no one to blame but yourselves for the ban on smoking. You light up when a where you choose with no consideration for anyone else. There are serious health risks from smoking. Should you choose to inflict those upon yourself that's fine, but I don't want it around my family or myself!
I can't tell you how nice it is to go out to the bars and not come home smelling like a nasty ashtray!
However, it is a persons right to smoke should they choose to do so. Businesses and the city need to figure out a solution for "butt" problem. If this isn't done soon, our city streets are going to become one big ashtray.
And to you smokers, please take some pride and respect for our city and dispose of your cigarettes properly. Thank you!
"looks hideous and terrible", Mr. Knapp must be referring to the crosswalks on Hwy. 3. And Mr. Knapp referring to the smart people around said table, Do not use the word "smart" so loosely.
I've got it, use the "butts" to fill the holes in the intersections. Now you have both problems solved and they'll probably last as long as the pavers did.
If there were appropriate places to put cigarette butts outside the bars then it wouldn't look so bad. Amazes me that those "smart people around the table" can't figure out what needs to be done. The Bar has figured it out, a bucket full of sand where the majority of cigarette butts do end up, of course you won't have them all in there, but it's a start! Lets concentrate on the bigger issues at hand, how about them crosswalks downtown, I think more people notice them rather than some cigarette butts here and there!
counselor: maybe you should consider a different walking path. You complain about walking through the cloud of smoke, where the hell else are the smokers that drink in bars suppose to go? Because we can't do it inside the bars anymore, so you tell me where I should go to smoke so I can convient you from having to take a "tobacco tour". Give me a break and find something else to complain about. I have my rights and if I have no other choice than to smoke outside the bar, rather than it, I guess that's not my problem now is it! :)
I think there is alot of generalization going on here. Riff-raff in bars??? Pretty generic. Half drunk people hanging out of bars. Pretty dramatic. Please get real. There are just following the law as you all wanted it to be. GET OVER IT. JUST LIKE THEY DID>
Nine out of Ten smokers will use an ashtray if one is available especially at a private event such as a wedding at the convention center. If they are provided or if there is a degsinated smoking area. Maybe the best solution to the problem is to use the deposit money required to rent the convention center if there is an over abundance of trash outside. Knowing your deposit could be taken away would more than likely get the renters to pick up the outside as well as the inside. It seems like a pretty simple solution to me.
This all so funny......Welcome to the real world where nobody have rights except for the ones with power.
and remember, u all are paying their wages.
Dream It: I am walking on a different path, but what a shame. I also forgot to mention the vomit we have seen on the sidewalks as well. I guess it's not "convient" for me to walk there anymore. My point is, throw away your butts! It's litter, just as if you threw garbage on the sidewalk. No, we can't legislate being respectful to others. You have the right to smoke, but you shouldn't throw them down on the ground.
why should it be the business owner or the city to provide cigarette butt recepticles when they are not the ones that made up this stupid non-smiking rule? Everyone should write to the few people it took to pass this bill.
I am so glad that I don't live in a State that controls everything that I do everyday.
maybe its time to put more decisions back in to the peoples hands .other states have dealt with these issues in a fair way. for instance, give non-smokers and smokers all some options. let the bars decide on wether or not they will permit smoking or not . this way everyone can choose whether or not they want to enter a "smoking place".it's a no brainer. we don't need "smart" people to figure this out
No surprise to some that I'll add my two pence worth or is it two cents worth.
I spent years working for the tobacco industry trying to defend the rights of smokers and quite frankly, while I doubt many of the claims by the anti's I got sick of defendng a bunch of peasants that continued to blow smoke in the faces of the masses, and when bans were introduced, filled the streets outside bars with butts and passing the litter problem onto another recipient of their habit.
Sure bars and restaurants used to act responsibly on behalf of their clients but they really can't be responsible for the area around their premises.
Nor is it the city's problem, it goes back to personal responsibility. There are littering laws, I'm sure the Le Mars Police could start issuing citations if they wished or maybe they could just wait for the city to get so brassed off that they will designate the whole inner area of the town a non-smoking area.
The choice is yours smokers!!!!! Clean up your act or face more regulations. Of course you have rights, but you are now a minority, the majority have more rights and they have the power to make life really, really hard on you!!!
And as I sense winter coming on, snow doesn't cover all sins as I found out when a spring thaw came and the back lawn was strewn with the remnants of my dastasdly deeds so I suggest you go to your Dollar General Store, buy a personal ashtray, stick it in your pocket and use it!!!!! Or else, face a town prescinct that doesn't want to know you.
Thirty years ago I arrived in Singapore, a country that then banned, long hair, chewing gum and littering. I had to have a haircut to get through Customs, dispose of my Wrigleys and have a receptacle for cigarette butts if I was smoking in public. It really wasn't that much of a problem (but I'm sure my hair was sold to ESPN to make a wig for one of their frontmen) and it provided me with a lifelong lesson in litter disposal.
Smokers, somewhere, somehow, you still have rights but they are being eroded by your very behaviour so unless you want them further eroded, tell your fellow social outcasts as you stand outside a bar, to responsibibly dispose of that little thing between your fingers.
Here endeth the lesson
Maybe we should do like we did with the littering problems of cans and bottles in the ditches. Put a deposit on each cigarette in a pack and smokers can return the butts for their money back. Joking folks!
But seriously - where did smokers put their butts when they smoked inside? Who cleaned up those butts before? Why has this changed?
Smokers - just pick up your butts and keep it clean and there won't be a problem - seems like a no brainer!
People just need something to complain about so why not pick on the smokers and their cigarette butts. I'll let you all know I find so much humor in everyone's post and that's what keeps me coming back! :) Have a great day everyone!
What does it take for everyone to quit the bickering and fighting?
What does it take for all the nonsense to end?
What does it take for the name calling to END?
This is disgusting! It is an OUTRAGE and frankly makes me hurt and upset I live in a community where ripping each other apart is just so nonchalantly done!
Give the ash trays back! As one person said use a flower pot to disguse the ash trays if it is illegal to have one! Have the bars who want the revenue do something to prevent the lack of cleanliness that so many are complaining about! Or have the city come up with an idea on how to fix it! We do have a city council and I think sometimes we need to leave some of these issue up to them!
Stop the useless stereotypes like "Riff/Raff, Peasants, Drunks ect.....!" It's UN-Necessary!
Why do we all feel the need to name call? Yet we jump down our kids throats for doing the same thing! It only causes an argument and makes our city look ridiculous to those out of towners who read this paper online! We look childish and immature! We need to show that we all aren't so nasty and cruel! Yet work together as a community should!
JUST STOP IT! We are ADULTS not children on the play ground!
Didn't you ever here the phrase "You Catch More Bees With Honey?"
Well say it nicely and see what the smokers think we can do to solve the problem! See if they are willing to help. Maybe they didn't see the issue until now and it just needed to be brought to their attention.
Sometimes if you have a better approach you just might get what you are looking for!
"A SOLUTION!!!"
Keep complaining and eventually there will be new laws passed to eliminate the problem(s).....How about we each mind our own business and continue down lifes sometimes interesting road(s). God Bless!
Heres an idea, Lets just put out those smoke stack cig holders and they can congregate there for smoke break time, WOW just like a water cooler.......
IF YOU GUYS DON'T GO TO THE MTG'S YOU HAVE NOTHING TO SAY!!!!
Ok time for my thought. I agree with most of you saying us smokers are damned if we do and damned if we don't. First you take our RIGHTS away by a smoking ban. I have accepted that and moved on. Now you are complaining that the butts are gross. Well guess what? If these establishments would provide a place for them I know 9 out of 10 would use them. The "butts" are always going to be an issue cause people are outside and "flick" it when there done cause there is no ashtray to put them. Nothing is ever going to stop people from complaining until all of our rights are taken away. So until that day keep on gripping and I will keep on flicking.
You complained because of smoke in the bar, now your complaining about smoke outside. Are you serious? I mean come now. We have accepted the fact that our rights have been taken away, now we get it for smoking outside too? In the winter time who suffers? The non-smokers in the bar or the person that had his rights stripped away smoking outside the bar? And as the person respects the law and goes outside to smoke you still have to grip about how you have to walk through this cloud of smoke OUTSIDE. Here is an idea. Stay home. don't go anywhere. Serious cause I'm sick of all these people around here with their noises in the air thinking that the world revolves around you. GUESS WHAT? The world revolves around me and so does the "butts" that I will throw in the streets..
PROVIDE A PLACE TO PUT THEM AND YOU WILL SEE A DIFFERENCE....
Thank you Huskerfan. I couldn't agree with you more! :)
i agree with huskerfan
Huskerfan finished off with the following quote.
"PROVIDE A PLACE TO PUT THEM AND YOU WILL SEE A DIFFERENCE...."
Now we aren't talking Kevin Costner and a "Build it and they will come" quote.
For time an memorial there have been ashtrays but you have always seen butts around the place, burn marks on bar carpets, the dancefloors, even the bar tops and tables. Bar owners have suffered for years, a necessary evil to make a buck. They didn't ask for the law so why should the outside of their premises be their responsibility (I'm sure some do take care of the litter just to keep the area attractive) but it still goes back to user responsibility and if the user doesn't take responsibility then it's the Council that will step in and further reduce your precious rights.
I smoked long enough and around enough smokers to know that it doesn't matter how many ashtrays there are, no matter how much bar owners themselves spend on providing receptacles, there will be excess "spillage" in the social outcast areas cos by the very nature of our un-natural habit, we are slobs and when we indulge in another un-natural habit of plying our innerds with alcohol, we just get worse so I'm sorry Huskerfan, you and your fellow smokers are on a downward spiral and it will just get harder and harder till you get like me and say "Stuff it" and give it away. Well until I'm told that I have a terminal disease when I'll go out and buy a couple of cartons a week and tell all the antis where to stick it.
See I will disagree with you Don. Out of all the smokers that were in the bar. over 95% of people used an ashtray. Yes there are people who are just "slobs" that didn't care. But outside is the same thing. Every where you go people are careless but i will put money on the fact that if you provide a place for the "butts" you will find MOST people will use them. And yes its not the business responsibility, BUT if they care enough how there outside looks they will TAKE responsibility and put something out there.
And I'm sorry to disapoint you but when your drinking your not going to put out your cig, put it in your hand and take it inside to throw away. Not going to happen. But hey I'm sure they will come up with another law saying we can only smoke in our homes with the lights off under the sheets.. So enjoy while we can...