Thanks to the smoking ban, city sidewalks are littered with cigarettes. Whose job is it to clean them up? The indoor smoking ban that took effect months ago was clearly a vote for public health. However, there turned out to be an unintended consequence. Cast outside to huddle in alcoves, crouch under awnings, and shiver in the rain, Huntington smokers have to do something with the remnants of their last drag.

Before the new ordinance hustled smokers outside, there were ashtrays inside. Now, even the most environmentally sensitive of smokers revert to a familiar strategy: drop butt to sidewalk, grind with foot, and walk away. For affected merchants, it is an extra burden to clean up the mess that falls onto the gray area (literally) of city sidewalks.

Who is responsible to keep the sidewalks, gutters and streets clean? There is not anything specific in the law pertaining to cigarette butts and their disposal. Outdoor enforcement, meanwhile, seems to be "not my problem."

Although by city code you can be fined for littering, the police have not doled out butt-flicking citations. Butt measurement turns out to be no less difficult than enforcement. Butt (pun intended), trust me -- there are hundreds of thousands all over Huntington and the various communities throughout Cabell County.

Lighting a cigarette ritually re-enacts man's mastery over fire. It can be social glue or a simple means of flirting. It is a fundamentally deliberate act and -- as any advocate of smokers' rights would argue -- a matter of individual choice. However, so, of course, is littering.

What is the solution if we want to end the shame of having a cigarette-littered and otherwise dirty city? I would like to hear about the tactical and strategic plans envisioned by current candidates for city and county political office for cleaning up this environmental blight on our communities.

C. Richard Cobb is a Huntington resident, a neighborhood advocate, founder of the Adopt Your Block program and a former citizen member of The Herald- Dispatch editorial board. He writes the "Neighborhood Issues in Cabell County" blog at www.herald- dispatch.com.

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