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Chief Willie L. Williams on Tuesday ordered his officers to stop smoking in squad cars [url=www.cigarettesss.com]Tobacco Shop[/url], outside police stations and at crime scenes--an edict that immediately drew grumbles and rolled eyes from smokers and nonsmokers alike among the department's rank and file [url=www.wholesalecheapcigarettes.com]Marlboro Lights[/url].
Williams said the ban, approved Tuesday by the Los Angeles Police Commission, was needed to carry out a new state law that prohibits smoking in all enclosed workplaces [url=www.cheapusacigs.com]Newport Cigarettes[/url], including city vehicles. The city attorney's office has interpreted that to cover patrol vehicles, the chief said.
Williams directed that officers not smoke "in public view," such as while standing in front of police stations. Moreover, he barred officers from even holding cigarettes, cigars or pipes--a move that the department said was intended to forestall officers telling supervisors they were not smoking, and then continuing to puff when the supervisor walked away.
But within hours of the policy's unveiling, many officers were grousing that the new ban was childish, an infringement on their rights that probably will be widely ignored.
"It's like being back in high school," said one officer at Parker Center, who declined to give his name. "You'll see people sneaking out [to smoke] all the time. Like I'm going to do right now."
Under city and state law, smoking already was off-limits inside station houses and other police buildings, although officers were allowed to smoke outside. But under the new policy, smoking is banned anywhere officers can be seen by the public, including at crime scenes and in squad cars.
Officers said that smokers--mostly older officers--are a distinct minority within the department and that they generally accept the ban on smoking inside police buildings [url=www.cigarettessupermarket.com]Marlboro Cigarettes[/url]. But they argued that many smoking veterans picked up the habit as a way to deal with job stress and that it is unfair for the department to take that small comfort away.
"My God, if you're in the field in a police vehicle and you want a smoke, which to some people is a tension-reliever, then so be it," said Larry Ariaz, a 25-year department veteran who retired Friday, as he puffed on a cigarette inside the Saratoga, a bar on Sunset Boulevard that is popular with police.
"Who's it going to offend? Isn't it dehumanizing to an individual that because he has a cigarette, he's being categorized as other than professional? How many doctors smoke?"
Ariaz compared Williams' squad-car smoking ban to a ban on tattoos initiated by former Chief William H [url=www.ctdonut.com/marlboro]Cheap Cigarettes Free Shipping[/url]. Parker in the 1960s, saying that both were impractical and impossible to enforce. Parker tried to hide police tattoos by ordering officers to wear long-sleeved shirts.
"But they soon found out that if it was 100 degrees outside, the officers were just not going to wear long-sleeved shirts," he said.
Officer Steven Del Castillo, who was manning the front desk at police headquarters Tuesday evening, said that even though he is a nonsmoker, he thinks it is unfair for the department to take the "pacifier" of smoking away from many veteran officers who became addicted to cigarettes to deal with job-related anxiety [url=www.usasmokingsale.com]Carton Of Newport 100S[/url].
Del Castillo said that even he occasionally lights up a cigar when he is around corpses, as a way of screening out the smell of death.
"Smoking's like premarital sex," he said. "You're not supposed to do it, but everyone does, so what's the big deal?"
He also predicted that smokers will continue to light up and that the new policy will heighten tensions between smoking and nonsmoking officers in patrol cars.
"There's going to be a lot of guys who'll say, 'You're getting residue in my Evian,' or 'You're making my hair smell,' " he said.
Another officer, who declined to give his name, said smokers on the force will find ways to dodge the ban.
"They're going to smoke regardless," he said. "We're grown men."
But at least one officer thought the extended smoking ban is an idea whose time has come.
"From the professional side of it, it's a good idea," said Officer Ruben Rodriguez, who works at the Hollenbeck station. Smoking, he said, "portrays a bad image."
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