Smoking Ban

Coyotes prowling on Isabel Street I live in Glendale on Isabel Street between Mountain and Stocker streets. Lately, most of the time, in the early morning about 6 a.m., I have been seeing a coyote on Isabel. This past Sunday, I saw the coyote with all my friends and family at 4 p.m. walking down the street on Isabel. I know it is very dangerous for our kids. I have my own children ages 2 and 4. Is there any way we can, as a community, work on something to protect our children and pets (“Coyote sightings on the rise,” Aug. 1)

Somewhere in the city, Councilman David Weaver must be confiding gleefully to an acquaintance on his good fortune to be at the center of the smoking storm (“Weaver’s remarks slammed,” Aug. 7). Not only has he been promoted as a health advocate, he has also been portrayed as the victim of Armenian hypersensitivity. But, you don’t know Weaver. Those who really know the council members informally through hundreds of City Council sessions and personally, as we meet with them to advocate for major improvement in city governance, Weaver would be our last guess in a potential list of health advocates.

Am I the only one missing the point about this smoking-ban controversy? It can’t be, but it sure feels like it. The smoking ban itself did not really cause much of a rift in the community, but the recent comments in the Pasadena Weekly attributed to Councilman Dave Weaver did. Weaver allegedly implied that compared with the rest of the population a larger proportion of Armenian-Americans are smokers. If he said this, he was probably correct. As this has not been scientifically proven through a study or a survey, we can consider it somewhat of an anecdotal evidence.

What a pleasant surprise. Last week, as I followed the usual trail of cigarette butts and trash between the Glendale Community College Parking Lot A to the track, there it was — a sign for a smoke-free campus petition. Finally, someone decided to take action. I hope that there were many signers, and that the college administrators and trustees finally pay attention to this serious concern. Although I have written about smoking on the Glendale Community College campus several times before, it seems worth writing again because it’s obvious that smokers aplenty are still fouling the air. Everyone agrees, except maybe for a few deranged smokers, that smoking is very likely to lead to a premature and unpleasant death.