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News, Apb, Santa Monica, Police Department
52-Year-Old Man Arrested For Breaking Smoking Laws At Santa Monica Bus Stop
Alert Police Blotter: Smoking Gun.
Posted Dec. 12, 2012, 1:06 am
Tim Broughton / Mirror Contributor
A 52-year-old man was arrested Friday, Nov. 30 for breaking smoking laws at a bus stop in the area of Fourth Street and Broadway in Santa Monica.
At 1:16 p.m. officers of the Santa Monica Police Department were on patrol in the area when they spotted a man smoking a cigarette in violation of a Santa Monica Municipal Code that prohibits this act.
The officers told this man that he could not do this and in response the suspect became agitated and threw the cigarette into the street (another Santa Monica Municipal Code violation). The man then began to walk off.
The officers followed this man and he continued to argue with them until they arrested him.
This homeless man was charged with smoking at a bus stop and his bail was set at $500.
Editor's Note: These reports are part of a regular police coverage series entitled "Alert Police Blotter" (APB), which injects some minor editorial into certain police activities in Santa Monica. Not all of the Mirror's coverage of incidents involving police are portrayed in this manner. More serious crimes and police-related activities are regularly reported without editorial in the pages of the Santa Monica Mirror and its website, smmirror.com.
Comments
Dec. 12, 2012, 2:56:12 pm
john h. said...
Well, I am a smoker. I did not start smoking until I was well into my 20s. (honestly). It is my only "vice" if it can be called that and believe smoking is bad for a person. Yet, it helped, without mentally impairing and risking lengthy psycho-active medications and therapy (serious) millions of Americans get through stress and tough times as well as people enjoy it too. (These mental health problems are going to be just as expensive, if not more so, in the coming years without cigarette smoking than lung and heart problems. I assure all of that.) Despite what is marketed about the pitfalls of tobacco. The public smoking issue in Santa Monica is extreme to most places although most other places are becoming hard on it too. I will be een more careful although I do a great job of not only throwing stuff away and not on ground, smoking "away" from others in public and always asking if someone comes near if it bothers them, etc. I have rights too and see pot smokers and alcohol drinkers of all kinds and not just "homeless" either on the street. I get "sexually harassed" by women so often and attitude much worse than ANY smoker gives another in public and bitten by males "protecting" these girls as if they were their "pimps". These are YOUR daughters too Santa Monica. So, thanks for the tip, I will be more careful. I respect the S M Police. I am not perfect. The guy should have apologized and asked for break after picking up the cig. butt although he probably should not have gone to jail. Ticket for this thing to a homeless person is more a problem unfortunately as it can not solve a problem for an entirely indigent person where the average citizen with income learns a lesson.
Dec. 12, 2012, 5:15:58 pm
mangeleno said...
My last cigarette was on Feb 15, 2003. I had smoked for 39 years. I quit because i spent 56 days at UCLA SAMO Hospital, beginning on that date. At the end of the 56 days, I hopped out of the hospital on one leg and a walker. On Oct 8, 2010 I lost the other leg - this time above the knee. These days when someone asks how i am doing, I invariably answer, "Rolling right along" Very few have realized the play on words as I am still in a wheelchair,, although vI remain hopeful of walking again someday. Heart and lung problems are what I had always heard about smoking. Once in a long while, someone would mention "circulation", but no one in 39 years ever connected the dots between "circulation" and "amputation", so I believe that i am something of an expert on the negative effects of smoking. Having said all that, it should be noted that we live in the People's republic of Santa Monica, and not Stalag 17. Conservatives don't seem to understand that they can't refuse to help anybody. Liberals don't understand that they can't save everybody. We need to get to a "live and let live" happy medium, folks. Anmd back in the days when I was a patrol supervisor, had any of my officers brought me a "smoking in a bus stop" collar, they'd have found themselves working a fixer post outside the Russian Mission to the UN in the middle of winter - for freakin'-ever!
Dec. 12, 2012, 3:34:13 am
Michele said...
I support the police, but when I read this I wonder of they get bored sometimes. I am not a smoker but seriously???
Dec. 12, 2012, 4:20:54 am
stewart said...
smoking killed my mother and father, I am not a smoker, but I too have to wonder where the departments priorities lie in examples like this one, can you imagine the jail house conversation? What are you in for? Armed robbery, mahem, assault, evasion, hit and run, assaulting a police dog, what are you in for? Me? uh, smoking at the bus stop and storming off mad....
Jan. 11, 2013, 7:19:03 pm
Terri Armitage said...
R U serious???? Is there NO COMMON SENSE left in this country? This man is HOMELESS yet this community allows him to be arrested
Apr. 29, 2013, 8:02:03 am
Jim said...
Really, how stupid but that's the kind of "nazi" state we are becoming. But smokers, we have got to stand up and do it anyway, maybe not "inside" to be kind to others, but when outside...we should smoke anyway. And if a place like LAX doesn't provide a place for smokers...then find a place like a bathroom.