Responding to ‘Butt-Barriers’ criticism

Dear Ms. Eckberg,

First off, thank you for responding to my article (I was beginning to think that no one reads it). I want to take a moment to respond to each of your critiques, but I’ll have to make it quick, because I’m – as you correctly point out – on a deadline.

I said that butt-barriers would “probably not” enforce the smoking ban because I think that most smokers were already complying with the ban, and that the barriers would provide little extra incentive.

You said that smokers have other options for disposing of their “smoldering tobacco product, (they can) snuff it out on the metal or rock sides like a big kid and toss the remainder of (their) cigarette in the receptacle.” But this isn’t really an option, because that could easily cause an accidental fire.

If there were Pop-Tart wrappers floating around and no proper disposal systems around, then yes, I would blame Concordia, and I would write an article asking for them to install trash cans.

As to my “(comment) that the ‘butt-barriers’ are a sham attempt (at) eco-friendliness” and your proposal for future advertisements on them: you are correct. I hadn’t thought of that and it’s an intriguing idea.

You claimed I incorrectly summarized Erica Bjelland and made her sound incompetent. Ms. Bjelland has been a friend of mine since high school who gave me permission to use that quote, exactly as I did in the article, and which I did not change, for the sake of integrity. If that sentence made her seem incompetent, then I am sorry; such is the nature of quoting Facebook messages, I suppose. If I had included the entire conversation, you also would have read my eloquent response, “lol can i quote u (sic)?”

Finally, I never said that “dealing with the ash urn couldn’t possibly be a waste of time and/or money,” merely that the time and/or money spent dealing with the ash could be offset through other practices.

Your other critiques are directed at other people, and I shall let those people defend themselves (though I will say I think the world maps are funny). But I would like to once again thank you for responding to my article, you made some good points, and I encourage anyone reading to do the same.