Gardens & The Smoking Ban

Since mid-May I've been spending a considerable amount of my non-working hours puttering away in the Association's garden. This is a true statement if you replace the word "puttering" with "engaging in back-breaking labor" and the word "garden" with "half a city block completely neglected and over run by weeds."

The only reason that I mention this is that what I expected would happen with the smoking ban has -- since the weather has been nice, there's a whole lot more folks loitering outside the local watering holes having a smoke. This means a lot more noise in the neighborhood. Something particularly noticeable when I'm in the back yard.

I'm not going to cry boo-hoo, woe is me, because I chose to live in the heart of the city. But it does remind me that the sorts of folks that wanted the smoking ban probably don't live near restaurants and bars and therefore are not as directly affected.

Now, there's been a shooting and a violent rape in my neighborhood within the last four weeks after a long time without such nasty crimes. I don't know that one could connect the ban with these things, but when there are more folks milling around, feeling cranky, more bad things happen...