By Beth Quinn

I recall with some nostalgia the days when I could shop at the Grand Union while smoking; when I could sit at my desk and smoke, even as my asthmatic co-worker retreated to the ladies room to take a few hits off her nebulizer; when I could light up on an airplane, the fresh-air crowd be damned.

As regulations and public opinion turned against me, I railed against my employer for shoving me outside to stand in the cold on the loading dock, breathing in the stench of garbage even as I sucked in the stench of burning tobacco.

I bitterly complained about pharmaceutical companies that developed half-assed, don’t-work quit-smoking products and then charged as much for them as I paid for cigarettes. I wasn’t going to get sucked into THAT scam, I vowed.

I decried a government that taxed my habit to fill its coffers on the back of my addiction.  I don’t for a moment believe the state of New York or the feds had my best interests at heart when they began to systematically make it both more expensive and less convenient for me to smoke. No one who stands to profit by a person’s bad habits sincerely wants that person to quit.

Still, the cumulative effect of it all was to … make me quit smoking. And I confess that I’m most grateful for that. After 40 years of smoking, I quit 3 years, 11 months ago – on Oct. 24, 2005 at 11 p.m.

It now seems preposterous that I smoked. What a crazy habit. It seems bizarre that it was tolerated indoors and that it is even now tolerated near building entrances where people have to make their way through the unhealthy haze to get inside.

Yes, yes, fine. Smoking is bad. The healthy people got to me. I’m done. I walk two miles a day, and I go to Zumba twice a week where I do a lot of vigorous aerobic dancing. Great, fine, wonderful. I am woman, hear me breathe. I will never smoke again.

But.

The City of New York is about to go too far. The health commissioner, Thomas Farley, announced a couple of weeks ago that he’s considering a ban on smoking in city parks and on beaches.

Don’t do it, Tommy. This isn’t about people’s health anymore. This is now punitive. It is too much in loco parentis. Smokers aren’t your kids, and it’s not your job to make them stop jumping on the bed even though they might fall down and break their necks.

It’s a big sky out there. A smoker in the park isn’t going to give the guy on the next bench a heart attack. Really.

As for the beach, I must confess that one of my greatest pleasures in life was to walk across the warm sand carrying my beach chair, a towel, a cold drink and a book. I’d settle myself close to the breaking waves, my face to the sun. I’d open my book and then … I’d light a cigarette.

Even as I write these words, I breathe deeply and pretend it is cigarette smoke I’m inhaling. It is the only scene in my imagination where smoking still seems like a wonderful idea.

They say that, when you quit smoking, you must quit in all the trigger situations – when your feet first hit the floor in the morning, after a meal, with a drink, while driving, in the shower. (Yes, I confess it. I smoked in the shower.) Perhaps I still enjoy the smell of other people’s cigarettes on a beach because I quit in October and never fully became a non-smoker in the summer sun.

I know a woman who quit smoking while living in Manhattan. She’d sold her car because who needs a car in the city, really? So she never quit smoking as a driver. About 20 years later – 20 years as a non-smoker! – she bought a home in Jeffersonville, then bought a car so she could get there on weekends.

The first thing she did when she got behind the wheel? She asked her son for a cigarette. She didn’t smoke it. In fact, she was shocked to find herself holding it in her hand. But she realized she was still a smoking driver.

That’s how I feel on the beach, but I suppose my personal pleasure in the smell of cigarettes at the ocean is beside the point. It really is a big sky. A smoker a few blankets down is not going to cause anyone to have an asthma attack or develop lung cancer or grow a second head.

Tommy, leave the smokers alone in the open air. If you feel you really must be a do-gooder and meddle in people’s lives, I have two other suggestions.

That tax on soda that Obama suggested? Go for it. Obesity kills far more people than cigarettes and, frankly, I think every fat kid has a criminal for a parent. The same parent who’s screaming about a smoker harming his kid in the park is the one who’s filling that kid’s gut with soda pop and potato chips.

And if you really want to ban something at the beach, how about boom boxes? I’d wager that, for most of us, noise pollution has ruined far more peaceful days at the beach than a bit of smoke rising on the breeze.

Beth can be reached at beth@ZestofOrange.com.

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