Careless Smoking blamed For Deck Fire

A cigarette is blamed for a fire that damaged a Fargo apartment building early this morning.

[Hugh Jass]

I had some difficulty finding info on them, but there seem to have been several cigarette-started fires in Fargo recently. This is the third or fourth thread to show up in the last couple of weeks regarding smoking causing apartment fires in one city or another.

[No Smoking Please]

It's called free ammunition and proof that we need stronger restrictions on smoking.

Did a non-smoker start the fire? Place the blame where blame is due, "The Smoker"

Add more taxes on cigarettes to cover the added cost to the fire departments.

[AntisRScum]

This is proof that forcing smokers outside was a foolish idea. BTW, I DON'T SMOKE.

Next....

[Hugh Jass]

No Smoking Please wrote:

It's called free ammunition and proof that we need stronger restrictions on smoking.
Did a non-smoker start the fire? Place the blame where blame is due, "The Smoker"
Add more taxes on cigarettes to cover the added cost to the fire departments.

If you were responding to the post before yours, I suspect that was someone's idea of irony. Please note the location. It's exactly the sort of completely nuts thing Azmac would post, but it I think it was a stand-in.

[Just me -]

AntisRScum wrote:

This is proof that forcing smokers outside was a foolish idea. BTW, I DON'T SMOKE.
Next....

So you don't think the fekkin' idiot could have started a fire inside the building?

[AntisRScum]

Just me - wrote:

<quoted text>
So you don't think the fekkin' idiot could have started a fire inside the building?

I think you started it.

[Wendra]

No Smoking Please wrote:

It's called free ammunition and proof that we need stronger restrictions on smoking.
Did a non-smoker start the fire? Place the blame where blame is due, "The Smoker"
Add more taxes on cigarettes to cover the added cost to the fire departments.

Typical of the frustrated control freak that you are.

[Hugh Jass]

Wendra wrote:

<quoted text>Typical of the frustrated control freak that you are.

Guilty of wanting fires controlled.

[hapshe]

;)

[llllllll]

No Smoking Please wrote:

It's called free ammunition and proof that we need stronger restrictions on smoking.
Did a non-smoker start the fire? Place the blame where blame is due, "The Smoker"
Add more taxes on cigarettes to cover the added cost to the fire departments.

Your whole "add more taxes on cigarettes to cover the added cost to the fire departments" is ridiculous. That's like saying add more taxes on candy so the parents of obese children can properly deal with their health issues by getting them into the YMCA or a gym. They wouldn't add more taxes on cigarettes for fire departments, ever.

[Hugh Jass]

llllllll wrote:

<quoted text>
Your whole "add more taxes on cigarettes to cover the added cost to the fire departments" is ridiculous. That's like saying add more taxes on candy so the parents of obese children can properly deal with their health issues by getting them into the YMCA or a gym.

Smoking is a MAJOR cause of fires that harm others.[look it up. Smoking is almost always near the top of a list of causes of fires--and particularly fires producing fatalities--in apartment buildings as well as residences in general.] A government-funded fire department spends taxpayers' money to address those blazes. Fighting those fires is NOT "optional".

Eating candy is a HUGE contributor to childhood obesity. However, the expanding waistline of a child does not directly harm others, and does not REQUIRE a governmental response/expenditure. Using the YMCA or a gym IS "optional".

Your analogy fails utterly.
Taxing a product because the use of that product increases the cost to the government of minimizing damage to people and property other than the products' users makes perfect sense.
Taxing a product because the use of that product increases the users' need for visiting a YMCA or gym makes very little sense.
I would concede the rationality of requiring store displays of candy to be above a certain height, so that small children would be less likely to fixate on it and create huges scenes so their parents would give them some to shut them up, or prohibiting having the displays right in the faces of shoppers who are forced to wait in line at the cash register.