SMOKING: Ban could start firestorm

Regarding Cory Jasmin’s letter of April 18, 2012: What a fantastic idea to ban smoking on the beaches. This great thought is simply incomplete as written. Yes, banning is the answer; it will interface with many other great plans.

Also needed is banning noise, screaming and crying kids and adults, rock concerts, loud stereos in the automobiles going to or coming from the beaches, loud tail pipes, throwing Frisbees, balls, or anything else that could injure a bystander or any noisemaking device which this ban would include musical instruments, nonmusical instruments used to make a noise, even the mouth as it is the worst of offenders at making noise.

As for booze on the beach I guess it’s now legal on beaches? Perhaps the rule of law does not cover drinking in public on the beach? How about digging holes in the sand, does this not become a safety issue? Someone could twist an ankle and sue the digger and the city. Perhaps even an ecology problem as the digger is changing the natural shape of the beach.

How about banning skinny people as they don’t project a healthy image of beachgoers. Or banning overweight people taking more than their fair share of the available sand. Ah, the biggie — the smell, ban perfume, ban dirty diapers, passing gas, food that has smell, French fries and hamburgers, and the most offensive of all: onions being cooked or having been cooked.

Ah the list goes on forever. I don’t like this or that, so ban it; remember prohibition? It proved to be utterly stupid, so stupid in fact even the congress noticed! Now that’s a genuine walking on water miracle. Be very careful with this banning stupidity, as you may be on the list that grows larger each time someone opens their mouth.

ANNE MOSS

Coeur d’Alene