If the stupid anti smoking Nazis didn’t pass the laws against smoking in bars and other private places of business this wouldn’t be a problem.

No, it would be. Most smokers don't think cigarette butts are litter. They throw them on the streets and sidewalks all over the world. It's been that way since cigs were invented. At most, the current indoor smoking ban, long overdue, makes the problem slightly worse.

How does throwing away cig butts within an acceptable venue accord to throwing them away on the sidewalk??

Many smokers are oblivious to the mess they make with the filters that last for many years (unfiltered butts are gone in a day or two). I've seen butts on trails miles into the wilderness and regularly see smokers toss them out of car windows. Its as if it was too much trouble to actually use the car's ashtray, but is more likely a product of the attitude that the world is their ashtray.

John Benton:Smoking causes cancer, heart disease and a whole lot of other health problems.
"the anti smoking Nazis" as you refer to those of us who do not want to damage our health by inhaling second hand smoke, having to smell old tobacco, and endure the mess that most smokers produce, have and will improve the general health of the population. It is also a very messy and addictive habit. Millions of dollars are spent every year cleaning up the trash left behind by smokers, who are too selfish and self centered or just careless to care about how their offensive and dangerous addiction impacts the majority of us who have managed not to be seduced by large corporations into "indulging" in this habit that will eventually kill its participants.

Part of the problem is also that property owners aren't supposed to provide ashtrays or receptacles for smokers to deposit debris into as they reenter buildings.

From the Smoke Free Workplace law, property owners are to "Remove all ashtrays and other receptacles for smoking debris from your workplace and from within 10 feet of entrances, exits, windows, and ventilation intakes as required by law."

I always notice a huge pile of butts on the walkway leading up to and next to the back door of our office building. This part of the law doesn't help.

How much are we paying people to count cigarette butts now? Just pick them up please.

Wow Fritz is sure earning that voter owned election money.

Two weeks ago she went to the OPAL bus service rally and turned it intot a TriMet rally.
First urging people to vote for the voter owned elections then for them to vote to approve TriMet's levy because TriMet is so wonderful.

Afterwards she told me
"We can't afford NOT to build Milwuakie Light Rail. We need to build more MAX while expanding bus service. We need a sales tax to fund a bigger TriMet."

Ben: . . Afterwards she told me
"We can't afford NOT to build Milwuakie Light Rail. We need to build more MAX while expanding bus service. We need a sales tax to fund a bigger TriMet."

What???
A sales tax to fund a bigger TriMet!!!

Insider talk here.

Looks like she is an insider who likes to portray otherwise.

Butts are gross.

Well, Irving Penn disagrees:

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5123157

I saw the exhibit here in Portland. It was stunning. Two concepts were elevated simutaneously. One: raising the bar on the art of the mundane and two: raising the bar on Platinum printing.

clinaman,

Yes that's her take.

After she said we need both more rail and bus service and I pointed out that we simply can't afford the high cost of the Milwaukie Light Rail and other rail projects, because they are raiding the funding for essential services at every level. Including carving up TriMet itself.

She said, "We need a sales tax to increase the funding".

She was oblivious to everything important and responsible.

Like the fact that the sales tax-tooth fairy will never arrive leaving only the raiding of essential services and imminent catastrophe.

And that there has not been any authentic assessment of merit in either the projects, the diverting the countless millions or on the effects of doing so.

It's simply move forward with reckless abandon for the sake of momentum.

There's no other way to put it. The Creey, Fritz, Burkolder, Peterson, TriMet, Metro cabal is lunatics perpetrating lunacy.

Well, maybe not lunacy, but adroitness. The sales tax won't come so what better to invoke to placate the LR folks but that? "See! I support LR. Just get me a sales tax...."

I can hope, can't I?

Ben, re: "There's no other way to put it. The Creey[sic], Fritz, Burkolder[sic], Peterson, TriMet, Metro cabal is lunatics perpetrating lunacy."

From Dave Kehr's (NYT) obit today for Claude Chabrol, 80:
“Stupidity is infinitely more fascinating that[sic] intelligence,” Mr. Chabrol once observed. “Intelligence has its limits while stupidity has none. To observe a profoundly stupid individual can be very enriching, and that’s why we should never feel contempt for them.”

BTW, you've omitted Metro councillor Liberty, who has long been ruthlessly promoting the Milwaukie light rail, which will be of no utility to most of the residents of the Metro district Mr Liberty allegedly represents.

There will be another Milwaulkie light rail "public meeting" this Thursday (16th) on SE 16th:
http://www.trimet.org/pm/getinvolved/index.htm#currentmeetings

Cigarette butts end up on the ground for the very simple reason that they are burning, and people put them out with their foot.

That's not good, but that's why they end up on the ground for the most part.

"BTW, you've omitted Metro councillor Liberty,"

I said cabal, that includes him of course as he is as loony as any.

Collectively they have absolutley no measure of priority, importance or merit.

I still smoke, although I am trying to quit. I knock the cherry off the butt, step on it and then put the butt in the nearest trash can after making sure it's not burning. It's not that hard to do, but there are some areas where trash receptacles are not handy.