Edinburgh Sucks! | Council ‘at it’ again

City Council

Council ‘at it’ again - More cash registers

By The Basa ⋅ July 12, 2005 ⋅

Not thought through The council have today announced that they are today about to hammer it’s citizens again.

With the new no smoking legislation coming into force early next year, the council want to cash in on the people who go outside to smoke, effectively making huge tracts of the city no-smoking whether they are indoors or not. It looks as though it is going to be easier to do cocaine or heroin than it is to smoke legally sold and highly taxed tobacco in the city.

With the innocuous announcement that they will be putting ’stubbing out’ plates on 1,000 bins across the city they also slipped in the fact that if a smoker didn’t use these plates then they would be fined £50.

Mike Drewry, director of environmental and consumer services at Edinburgh Council said: “Next year’s smoking in public places ban will result in more people smoking in the streets.

“They need to realise that there is a very real possibility of receiving a £50 fine for not stubbing and binning their cigarette ends.”

What this means in practice is that anyone who smokes within the city boundary and does not use one of these 1,000 ’stubbing-out’ plates could be fined £50. What they don’t mention is how far away from a plate must one be before getting the ticket. This looks as though it could be worse than the parking nightmare Edinburgh has been suffering for years that even Teflon Don Anderson says is too harsh.

It will also affect the poorest areas of the city hardest. This city council is now famous for letting down the city’s poorest. They never put rubbish bins in those areas, and they rarely send any street sweepers. I can see the day when the council start employing hundreds of these smoking wardens.