To the editor:

The election’s over. New battle lines have been drawn. Instead of us conservatives, it’s our cigarette-smoking neighbors who are jogging that last lap to perdition.

Many write to say now you can take your kids out to eat or grocery shopping. (Grocery shopping? Stores have been smoke free for years!) Ask yourselves, is your child the one screaming incessantly or running around, darting in the way of waiters and other customers? That can ruin a pleasant meal out just as much as that cigarette wafting across the room. Which person deserves to eat out in peace and comfort?

Those of you purporting to be looking out for our welfare, championing a safer environment for everyone, why aren’t you appalled at the harmful effects of drinking? It, too, destroys property and lives, yet no one proposes banning alcohol.

I don’t smoke or drink. However, I know that when I step beyond the environment of my home I, like you, may be exposed to things I won’t like: that loud person who’s had too much to drink, the protester waving a sign and shouting obscenities or the smoker lighting up a cigarette.

It’d be nice if none of us had any habits that offended or harmed one another. Maybe we should ban hatred, deceit, jealousy and all the other biggies.

That ban would be pretty hard to enforce. We’d all be guilty.

Sarah Ashley Posch,

Lawrence