Smoking pot is not a public nuisance therefore it does not compare in this instance. What would be comparable is if a whole bunch of potheads were to take over the public park and start playing loud music and selling drugs. Creating a disturbance or a public nuisance is usually covered under local ordinances. Failure to pick up after your dog is a $1000 fine in my city. Dogs must be on leashes at all times when not on your own property. There is a dedicated fenced area where owners can let their dogs off their leashes but it is only one small corner of the park.
Depends on where you're at I guess, & how much you smoke. In areas where it's legal, you can indeed get a violation or ticket for a public nuisance for puffing outside My point is, if only a ticket is being faced, folks tend not to care. Look at the ACA for example, and the numbers of folks who opted for the "fine"
Oh no, I'm not telling you that - there are. Trouble is there's never anyone around to enforce them, and even if a complainant goes through official channels they'll find themselves immersed in a morass of bureaucracy cleverly designed to make them lose the will to live. So far as social standards are concerned the authorities simply don't want to know; the only exception being that they might deign to get involved if the miscreant has wealth and means, and there's a strong probability that their action will result in a fine, and failing that, they'll know there's enough domestic goods for the bailiffs to confiscate to cover the default. It amounts to coercive payment of our taxes but no right of complaint, no matter how virtuous it is. This is what it's like when an entire country becomes bureaucratized. 'No taxes without representation'? What a sick joke it is!
And yet here in America where I live if the JW's come knocking on my door I just call the cops who then give them the option to leave or be arrested and charged with trespassing. Obviously you need to get your neighbors involved and make a scene at the next council meeting to get their attention. Make sure that the press are in attendance because nothing annoys public officials more than bad publicity. It took 10 years to get a local ordinance changed that was causing unfair double taxation. In the end it was the the threat of a public class action lawsuit that got them to relent. The settlement resulted in reimbursement of back taxes for the past decade to all that were impacted.
You make some good points D_T, but I don't have the time; I'm already a company director for our apartment building Freeholders' Company; I love my couple of hours on this board in the morning; and I like to go hiking in the afternoons if the weather's good enough. Also the editor of the local rag is a part of the elite and wouldn't publish any letters I might write. There's an adage here that goes 'You can't beat the system.', and I'm afraid it's true. We've been dumbed down so much that most people either don't care about principled stuff provided they have their moronic entertainments, or no longer have the intellectual nous to take up cudgels against the accursed bureaucrats. Therefore 'Operation Dumb Them Down' is now completed.
Like you, I was the president of my homeowners association and a volunteer trustee at my local library on top of having a full time job and occasional other volunteer work. So what I did was to write up the situation giving both pros and cons and then I went door to door with the printouts. If no one was home I left the printout and if they were home I stopped to explain the situation to them. In a relatively short time I had a couple more volunteers to do the leg work and to write articles for the local newspapers. It took a long time but eventually the local council had no option but to take up the issue because there were enough people involved and other lawsuits had been filed in other cities in the state where the taxpayers had prevailed. So with the threat of having to fight a losing lawsuit they did the right thing.
Good for you, and it was a very public-spirited effort that obviously paid off; but you have no idea how useless, dumb, and lethargic our public servants here are. All they're interested in are their confounded 'meetings' and the arrival of a fat pay cheque into their bank every month. Believe me, if I did everything you did I'd still be on a hiding to nothing. In past contretemps with my local council I've had occasion to remind some of them that 'You're a servant of the public, not its master,': they - especially the higher ranks - perceive they're in a position of power and it goes to their heads, then they start throwing their weight around like deluded bullies always do. I despair of what this country of mine has become - one populated by stupid people and governed by stupid people. And to rant a bit futher(!), that was the theory behind the mass dumbing down project - to render the populace intellectually unequal in taking on those who presume to rule.
