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ADDENDUMIn Merrick (NY) a landlord was arrested after tenants caught him in the act of videotaping them in bed with the aid of a hidden camera installed behind a mirror. The landlord, in defense, told arresting officers that he'd just wanted to make sure that his tenants weren't smoking. This did not prevent his arrest, but who knows--in a few years...? (N.Y. Post, 2/13/96 In Farmingdale, NY, a man fell into a water tank, breaking a lot of bones. In mental as well as physical extremis for half an afternoon as rescuers tried to get to him, he pleaded with a Johnny-on-the-spot paramedic to give him a cigarette. As the paramedic boasted to ABC News, "Of course, I didn't do it." (ABC-TV "Eyewitness News," 2/12/96 In lieu of a jail sentence, a Charleston, SC judge ordered that a 15-year-old juvenile delinquent be tethered to her mother for an indefinite period of time. This meant that the mother had to give up her own life, kick her husband out of the bedroom, and go everywhere with the girl, "except to the bathroom." The mother described the sentence as "extremely stressful" and "about to drive her crazy," and if that isn't bad enough, she now herself faces an incredible punishment of "up to a year in jail" for the crime of having smoked in the presence of her (shoplifter, runaway) daughter. (N.Y. Times 12/22/95) THEATER OF THE ABSURD. In Boulder, CO, smoking has been banned in all public buildings, including the Boulder Dinner Theatre where a production of the Broadway musical "Grand Hotel" includes a one-minute scene where a couple of characters smoke. After an irate patron called the cops, the owner of the theatre was ordered to cut the scene or face 90 days in jail and a $1000 fine. The copyright law, however, forbids him to alter the scene at risk of civil litigation. "It's so funny," said the copyright owner of the play. "In these censorious times, everone goes home and sits around the dinner table and talks about how great it is to live in a free country." (Phila. Inquirer 4/28/96) THE (NEW) BALLGAME After lighting a cigarette (20 feet from the nearest
spectator) at a Little League game, a Los Angeles father learned
the rules of the game had changed. While authorities detained him
and telephoned police (who refused to send a car) his son was
beaten up by the rest of the home team. After that, it got worse.
His son was permanently kicked out of Little League. Then it got worse.
His son was regularly sent home from school in the middle of the
day on the grounds that he "smelled of secondhand
smoke." After that, it got WORSE. The school decided that
his father's cigarettes were imperiling the boy's health and sent
a social worker to the house. It was only, the father claims,
because he happend to have a slick super-ventilator in his den,
that they finally left him alone. He wonders if otherwise, they
might have (incredibly) taken his son away. (The father now plans
to sue.) Linda Stewart WE INVITE YOU TO SUBMIT SIMILAR INCIDENTS ALONG WITH
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