The cigarette smoking Dog and pony show at 6 Flags

I visited 6 Flags Great Adventure in NJ yesterday as I have done just about every year for the past 10 years. 6 Flags has been cracking down on smoking to the point where the only places to smoke are 10x10 'prisons' behind a blue line. The areas are almost placed to embarrass you and display your patheticness to the passing crowd.

Now, I am not a huge smoker but I do enjoy having a smoke after spending 10 hours riding 80 mph roller coasters upside-down. I really felt embarrassed standing behind a line and having people gawking at me like I was part of a side-show. I have recently noticed that this has become a trend in all areas. I understand that smoking is not healthy, and I don't mind some limits on it but it is getting out of hand. Can anyone tell me a situation they have been in like this?

reply to post by hikix


Ha ha! That is so sad ... you should actually put a stall out front and collect money from the gawkers. Call the show something like "Endangered Species".

I thought this was going to be a thread about a smoking dog and horsey. I was going to be all angry and stuff.

As a smoker, I can sympathise completly. We call the smoking area outside the pub "lepers corner"


Anyway, surely at a large theme park, you can have a crafty chuff whilst walking about?

Similar situation occurred with my wife and I when we went to Six Flags Hurricane Harbor in Arlington, TX. Yes, we got gawked at, but I didn't care...AT LEAST they had a smoking section.

Just my 2-cents

EDIT: this simply baffles me, as it's OUTSIDE....It's not like the smoke is contained, like inside a building or something.

[edit on 6-8-2009 by Aggie Man]

Originally posted by Acidtastic
I thought this was going to be a thread about a smoking dog and horsey. I was going to be all angry and stuff.

Anyway, surely at a large theme park, you can have a crafty chuff whilst walking about?

hahah, its funny cause I was contemplating not naming this thread the way I did because some people would think that.

Yes its a huge park, with lots of space.... I should be able to smoke a cigg anywhere, but not waiting on a line.

Several years ago my family went to Kings Island (Ohio) amusement park. I sat on a concrete bench in the shade to have a smoke. Some lady got all arrogant and made loud comments to her kids about the nerve of "some people". Well I set her straight and my kids still remember how their mom didn't let the ignorant, arrogant woman bully her! We all laugh about it. But the kids know for sure that their mother does not back down! LOL The other woman gathered her kids and moved away in a huff. I sat and finished my smoke.

Sorry, but I was 12 when I started smoking. It was the thing to do to be cool back then. The marketing and advertising was in every magazine and on TV and still in the movies in the early 70's. Now! I'm an addicted freak. Weird how people are.

Not to go too far off topic, but airports are just as bad.

They put you through what is easily the most stressful environment many of us encounter in our normal daily lives.

They strip us, scan us, move us around like cattle and if, and thats a mighty big if, if they have a smoke lounge it's truly a level of hell.

I'm not asking to smoke inside or smoke where its publicly not safe or acceptable...but I have to say...I get really tired and annoyed with being treated like I have some communicable disease, sometimes the looks you get from people...just about sends you over the top.

I always want to shout, what the hell are you looking at?...you've got a vice, everyone does...I bet my smoking is insignificant compared to what you get up to.

reply to post by deadbang


Yes, airports (the few that have smoking section) are THE absolute worst. In most cases, the smoking section is an enclosed glass box w/no ventilation...makes even the strongest smoker cringe!

[edit on 6-8-2009 by Aggie Man]

I'm a smoker too and understand how you all feel. It's not like we're inside a building or anything. With the high taxes we pay, we should be able to have smoking areas.

I used to work downtown and had to stand in a certain area to smoke on breaks. The certain area was where the butt cans were, in front of the double revolving doors to the building!!! People would come and go, holding their noses and acting all put out by the disgusting smokers. I (being me ) would point out that those city buses they just walked past and the constant stream of automobile exhaust compressed and magnified by towering buildings all around us were more dangerous to their health than my second-hand smoke ever could hope to be. I'm a rebel.

i have been at some airports where the have a clear plexiglass inclosure where the smokers are allowed to puff away...its like being in a zoo, and i have found that the ventilation in the above inclosure is insufficient, maybe deliberately. as far as preventing people from smoking outside, i find it illogical that if a non-smoker gets a whif of smoke, that it will cause cancer, especially if they are standing by a road where diesel trucks are going by spewing exhaust clouds, or at the airport where continual jet exhaust covers the area...it simply makes no sense. there is simply so much more airborne contaminents that could do a person harm, other than getting a whiff of cigarette smoke in the open air, that it defies reason. so i have to conclude that the average smoker has no political power or large sums of money to compete against the interest of jets, diesel trucks, cars, pesticide and fertilizing spraying, chemical plants, refineries, industrial plants, large ocean-going ships in coastal cities, and ...on and on.

Been there done that dont give one damn about what people think about me smoking. Life is too short to let morons and hippocrites ruin your day. Now I do my best not to smoke around babies and little kids but sometimes stupid parents put them right next to me basically. So you know they can only blame thier own stupidity there.


[edit on 10-04-08 by Beach Bum]

That is how it was last summer when my bf and I and about 10 others went to Wet n Wild in Orlando, FL. You could only smoke in one area and it was REALLY small and behind a line. It was ridiculous.

It's their property and they can do with it what they want. No conspiracy here, why is this in Skunk Works?

Originally posted by icecap
It's their property and they can do with it what they want. No conspiracy here, why is this in Skunk Works?

Because it's a conspiracy theory. They isolate & publicly display smokers (like sideshow freaks)...the conspiracy being that they are trying to humiliate us smokers into quitting.

[edit on 6-8-2009 by Aggie Man]

Originally posted by Aggie Man

Originally posted by icecap
It's their property and they can do with it what they want. No conspiracy here, why is this in Skunk Works?

Because it's a conspiracy theory. They isolate & publicly display smokers (like sideshow freaks)...the conspiracy being that they are trying to humiliate us smokers into quitting.

[edit on 6-8-2009 by Aggie Man]

It's a business telling people that they can't smoke on their property because it would anger other customers and drive them away. From a purely business standpoint this makes perfect sense. If this topic was about the government forcing smokers into sectioned off areas to smoke then I would agree with you.

reply to post by icecap



I don't know about the rest of the US, but here in Dallas the businesses don't have a choice...even with it being their property. There are city (government) ordinances restricting where we can smoke. The business just takes it a step further by PROMINENTLY displaying us smokers. I see your point that it's private property, but the owners of such pieces of property have done this because of govt. regulation.

reply to post by Aggie Man


Fair enough, I'm not 100% sure what the motivation behind their anti-smoking efforts are. All I'm saying is that it makes sense for a theme park, whose primary patrons are families with small children, to curb smoking in order to satisfy their customers.

Originally posted by icecap
reply to post by Aggie Man

 

Fair enough, I'm not 100% sure what the motivation behind their anti-smoking efforts are. All I'm saying is that it makes sense for a theme park, whose primary patrons are families with small children, to curb smoking in order to satisfy their customers.

Yes, It makes sense, being family oriented and all...but you would think they would isolate the smoking section, clear of view from the families. But they place these smoking areas in, what seems like, the most common, viewable area. That's the part that doesn't make sense.

Originally posted by Aggie Man
Yes, It makes sense, being family oriented and all...but you would think they would isolate the smoking section, clear of view from the families. But they place these smoking areas in, what seems like, the most common, viewable area. That's the part that doesn't make sense.

Exactly, I wouldn't care hanging out in a secluded area under a shady tree. The smoking areas are on the side of busy walkways, in front of everyone who is passing by. It really is like being publicly humiliated.