Sunday, Nov. 30, 2008

By ERIC PATTERSON

Tokyo

In recent years here, smoking while walking on public streets has been outlawed in many places and smoking outside of designated smoking zones is becoming less and less acceptable. As a nonsmoker, I appreciate these efforts, but one unfortunate result of such restrictions is to concentrate smokers in particular areas such as outdoor train platform smoking zones. Whenever a train opens its doors alongside one of these now-crowded zones, clouds of smoke freely enter the car and ride along with you to the next stop.

Worst of all are the standing ashtrays clustered near building entrances. Besides encouraging smokers to congregate in a highly trafficked area, these ashtrays also create a unique stench all their own. Designed to hold water to extinguish burning butts, they're generally allowed to go dry so that the accumulated butts inside are eventually ignited by a freshly inserted butt. Since no one ever seems to take any responsibility for these ashtrays, they are allowed to smolder until they eventually burn themselves out, all the while giving off not only noxious billows of concentrated tobacco smoke but also chemical fumes from the smoldering filters.

Putting someone in charge of replenishing the water in these ashtrays — and perhaps moving them to less trafficked areas — would do a lot to ameliorate the situation.

The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.

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