This Mississauga shopping centre has decided banning smoking inside the mall and outside its entrances is not good enough. It is now banning smoking anywhere on its property, including the parking lots and roadways – even if the customer or mall employee is inside his or her own private vehicle. Apparently it thinks its job is to save us from ourselves, and that we will be so thankful we will continue to give it our patronage and shopping dollars.
But there are many places to choose to go shopping. If this mall wants to insult 20% of the shopping public in this fashion, then it is a simple matter to go elsewhere. This ban is an abuse of rights and of corporate control. We all have to speak out – and vote with our wallets – to let this mall and anyone else know who might be thinking of acting in this way that this is not acceptable. Please take a minute to email or phone in your message to the contacts below – and encourage your friends and colleagues to do the same.
Sherway Gardens:
“Contact us” email: [email protected]
or phone: Scott Kyle, General Manager, at (416) 621-1071 ext 7010.
Cadillac Fairview Corporation Ltd:
Linda Gray, Senior VP, Ontario Portfolio. [email protected]
or phone: 416-598-8293.
Heath Applebaum, Manager, Corp Communications. [email protected] or phone: (416) 598-8645.
(Article originally posted at MyChoice.ca and reprinted here)
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9 comments
Yeah, typical.
I spent YEARS trying to amicably reason with puritanical, anti-smoking fascists. It gets you absolutely nowhere.
Fascist-like bigots who support a movement hell-bent on stripping other people of liberties in order to rid the world of something they merely find to be distasteful are not treated with kid-gloves here. They are instead treated with the exact amount of respect they deserve.
Don’t like it? Tough.
I’m done with you Derek! You’re too angry to think straight. Any facts or supporting evidence that I supply on my side will just be ignored or smeared as a “hate war”. You might try respecting someone else’s opinion instead of quickly turning to name-calling & insults. The evidence is out there, clear the air around you and open your mind.
Why is it so hard for smokers to stick to the point when arguing their case? Maybe it’s because they don’t really have one.
My main point was that smokers are terrible litterers. Or are you in denial about this fact too? It’s not “a lot” of smokers doing it, it’s most of them! You would get more respect if you stuck with “I, more than most, wish they’d stop”, and left it at that.
You’re just a pissed-off smoker that thinks he’s being persecuted. Your arguments don’t work when all you do is re-direct blame, make assumptions, & ignite your opinion.
btw, I never litter because I fight against all littering. And only a smoker would think that a coffee cup on the ground is a bigger problem than a cigarette butt. Coffee cups don’t immediately release toxins into nature.
Oh, here’s an assumption for ya: the one’s throwing the cigarette butts are probably also tossing their food wrappers on the ground. It follows, since as a group, smokers don’t have a problem littering.
Cigarette butts are made of plant material (the tobacco — much of which has been transformed, through the process of combustion, into almost pure carbon at the time of disposal), paper, and cellulose acetate — cellulose acetate is a wood product. Cigarette butts are 100% bio-degradable and break down within 9 to 14 months of being discarded, under normal conditions.
Did you get that part about what they’re made from? They’re made from “cellulose acetate.” Two words: “cellulose” and “acetate.” Acetate referring to acetic acid. If you’ve ever eaten salad with a vinegar based dressing, you’ve eaten acetic acid. And, cellulose happens to be the primary component in each of the cell walls of your very own body. In what other products is cellulose acetate commonly used? Clothing, draperies, furniture upholstery… Evil stuff, huh? Think about all of those deadly toxins you’re lying on the next time you take a nap on your couch!
In at least one study, carried out by the U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information, lab rats were forced to directly ingest cellulose acetate at levels of up to 5% of their body weight, PER DAY, EVERY DAY — that would be roughly equivalent to me eating TEN POUNDS of cigarette filters each and every day. The rats never showed any signs of any resultant, detrimental health effects. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1894211
Plastic drink containers, many snack-food wrappers, plastic coffee-cup lids, grocery bags, etc. are made from polyethylene terephthalate — a plastic polymer that DOESN’T biodegrade AT ALL, and is estimated to have a photo-degradation span of between 500-1,000 years under most natural conditions. Polyethylene terephthalate has been shown to release endocrine disruptors — which are known to cause cancerous tumors, birth defects, and other developmental disorders — in amounts which are toxic to humans. Do you want to eat ten pounds worth of plastic drinking bottles every day and let us know what happens to you? C’mon, Todd! Do it for science!
“Degradation of Cellulose Acetate-Based Materials”, 2010, Juergen Puls,
http://www.springerlink.com/index/M445505624825687.pdf
“STUDY OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION OF CIGARETTE FILTERS: A simulation of the Roadside or Parking Lot Environment.” Stephen K. Haynes, et al,
http://www.acetateweb.com/pdf/EnvironmentalDegradationOfCigaretteFilters.pdf
But, it’s cigarette butts that seem to get you all riled up, huh? Tell me, Todd, when was the last time you advocated for the banning of the public consumption of soft-drinks based on the argument that it produces toxic litter? When was the last time you took time out of your life to post on someone’s blog about that? You freakin’ deluded hypocrite!
And, to respond directly to some of the utter banalities in your latest comment:
Which I addressed, directly, in my previous post. So, I don’t know what you’re on about with your “Why is it so hard for smokers to stick to the point…” idiotic nonsense.
On what, other than your own entirely uninformed, completely subjective, presupposition do you base this claim? When, exactly, was the last time you undertook a controlled audit of the smoking population and their tendency to litter in relation to other populations? I want to know, Todd! When was it?
Sorry, Todd. I do not care one iota about gaining the respect of addle-minded, puritanical hypocrites.
What toxins do cigarette butts “immediately” release? I want you to name them.
Todd, Sherway Gardens restricted any visitor from smoking “completely in his car.” So, I don’t know what you’re on about with that.
Secondly, if a smoker is discarding their cigarette butts on the ground, they’re littering — just like a non-smoker who discards an empty candy wrapper or drink cup, or what have you, on the ground.
Yes, a lot of smokers do this, and it’s not right. And, trust me, I, more than most, wish they’d stop — because it gives the hypocrite, bigoted, anti-smoking-Nazi idiots ammunition to use in their hate-war.
However, whenever I go out these days, I tend to see a lot more soda cans, chip bags, cardboard coffee cups, etc., littering the streets than I do cigarette butts.
Now, this is just my guess, but I’d wager that you’re probably not nearly as irked by that sort of litter than you are by cigarette litter. And, if this is indeed the case, one must wonder why that is. Especially when you consider that cigarette butts actually bio-degrade within 14 months under normal outdoor conditions. Whereas, plastic litter, like soft-drink bottles and coffee-cup lids, don’t. Yet, oddly enough, I never hear people using litter as an argument for banning people from eating snacks, or drinking coffee outdoors — or while sitting in their cars in the parking lot of Sherway Gardens mall. Odd, isn’t it?
Yah, I guess it would be real torture to force a smoker to smoke his cigarette completely in his car and even, (gasp) to use his ashtray since they are so accustomed to polluting the streets, sidewalks, & environment. Smokers have a choice, & you take away everyone else’s choice.
This business of banning people smoking in their cars prior to entering the building is ludacris. Nowadays there is a thin line between being trendy and just being stupid.
The preoccupation should be on attracting a customer base and not alienating a fair sized chunk oof it.
They chose to do just that and they deserve to lose that business as a consequence.
It is just that simple.
Perhaps YOU should get your facts straight!
From Sherway Garden’s own press release, the leading paragraph states:
“Leading the way with socially conscious initiatives, Sherway Gardens (Hwy 427 & the QEW) will be the first shopping centre in Ontario to create a property-wide smoke-free environment with the launch of the Breathe Green initiative on July 7, 2007. Breathe Green will prohibit smoking on any part of Sherway Gardens’ property.”
You do know what the terms “property wide” and “any part of [the] property” means don’t you?
I didn’t read anywhere in their press release where they said anything to the effect of: “And by ‘any part of the property’ we mean only certain parts of the property.”
I think your group should check their facts. There is nothing in Sherways press release that indicates smoking will be banned from our cars. That comment came from one of the local newspapers and not the shopping centre. I think their focus is on the entrances and exits which is reasonable…Calling for a Boycott based on erroneous facts is not