I'm a non-smoker. I have never smoked. My father did - that was enough for me.
BUT - I think you have a genuine grievance, Janet.
In Australia, smoking is now illegal in all public buildings and even near the doorways of all public buildings. No restaurants can permit smoking now, not even in the outside areas.
But the rights of smokers to have somewhere that they CAN smoke are also protected.
I do get annoyed with people who smoke where they're not supposed to, but I haven't got a problem with someone smoking where they are legally entitled to do so.
There is less smoking in Australia than the US, I think. Perhaps because we haven't got the same historical connections to it. We have raised our kids to be non-smokers. So have most of our friends.
On Tuesday we travelled in to the city with friends (and their kids also). At one point we stopped to feed the kids at a table in the grounds of the UTS (University of Technology, Sydney). As the kids began to eat, one of the small boys commented that he could smell cigarettes - it was the workers at the next table, taking their work break from the landscaping job they were on. There wasn't a lot of smoke, just enough to notice, so I explained to the boy that the man wasn't breaking the law, he was allowed to smoke there and had been sitting there before we got to the next table. We would just have to accept this. We always have the choice to move.
The workers finished their cigarettes (about ten workers sitting together; only two smokers). The kids finished eating. No problems.
My father was a smoker. I hated having to sit at the table to finish my dinner, while he lit up. I couldn't taste my food, only the smoke. Then years later he gave up smoking when a doctor told him he was dying of emphysema. He had been given about two years to live.
After he gave up, he took up exercise to build as much lung power as he could. It gave him good quality of life and he lived another 20 years. But both he and my mother needed to avoid cigarette smoke, or suffer dire consequences often involving hospitalisation (especially my mother who had severe asthma). That is when I became aware of just how important it was to ensure that when they were out in public, they were not in any enclosed space with tobacco smoke. Of course, their politeness meant they would say nothing. I became adept at being polite to people while still avoiding exposing my parents to smoke.
My father had a guest arrive unexpectedly. They invited the man to lunch in their home. After lunch, the man leaned back and lit a cigarette. My parents said nothing. I was desperately anxious. Finally I suggested, "Dad, why don't you take your friend out to the deck outside and you both sit there and enjoy the view? I'll bring you both some coffee and do the washing up."
Good on dad - he took the hint and ushered his friend outside. I had saved both my parents a hospital trip, but without their friend being any the wiser, for the possible damage his innocent cigarette could have caused.
I wonder if the hospital, in it's 'wisdom', is thinking of patients like my parents, who need to be kept away from cigarette smoke. It is important that a hospital at least, be a place where such people can be safe. However, to extend that ban to the car park of another location, which is outdoors and merely a transit place for transport (and not the only option) is, I think, taking the Nanny State a bit too far. My parents were quite safe if they were able to be outdoors with enough air circulation. And their problem with cigarettes was fairly extreme.
If cigarette smoking is banned in too many locations, then smokers will soon just give up and break the law wherever. It is better to have some designated areas which make it feasible to continue to smoke without being too greatly inconvenienced, than to make obeying the law just too difficult.
As a non-smoker, I would rather KNOW that certain areas are guaranteed to be smoke-free, I will happily put up with those areas where smokers are free to indulge because that makes it easier to be sure I can breathe freely inside when I need to. It just makes sense to give smokers a fair go and to be reasonable. Too many bans - people give up and ignore them. Then we ALL lose.
I watched my father die. It wasn't pretty. He had done an amazing job reclaiming his health - he would have kept going even longer, if a long-dormant TB hadn't moved in and complicated the picture. That's when his emphysema became a huge problem again.
I watched my mother's brother die from emphysema. And husband's uncle. Again, not pretty. Of them all, my father coped best, because he exercised. He fought. It all confirmed for me, that looking after my lungs was a good thing.
But I also have seen people try to quit. You REALLY need to be sure it's what you want to do, it can be done but it's not easy. I have great admiration for those who succeed, and no shame for those who try but just can't make it. Not yet.
Banning places to smoke is not how to make people quit. My father quit because it became personal. He had his own good reasons. That also made it easier for him.
I never started. I knew quitting is hard, and I never wanted to have to go through it.
Janet, go fight. You're entitled to smoke in the car park. I doubt the legality of the hospital enforcing a ban like this. Even if they can quite laws, chances are there are civil rights laws that over-ride, in the case of the car park at the mall.
But don't let the hospital's actions be an excuse to keep smoking - if you want to keep smoking, that is YOUR choice. Not the hospital's. Same with quitting - it has to be YOUR choice. Anything less than your choice - you won't succeed.
Marg