from the "butt out" dept.

It's nice to see that a B.C. restaurant chain has banned smoking from their patios.

Sitting on a Vancouver patio on a hot summer day is a beautiful thing -- until you have to breathe in the cancer fog spewed by lunkheads puffing their heads off one table away.

The only option had been to go inside where smoking is banned. What a load of crap.

But now Milestones has done the unthinkable:

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - As you may be thinking about dining out in the sunshine today, you might want to know Milestone's has banned smoking on its patios.

The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority is pleased the restaurant chain recognizes the vast majority of us don't like smoke blowing in our faces, whether it's indoors or out.

The authority's environmental health manager, Nick Losito, remembers the battles he had with Doll and Penny's restaurant on Davie to get them to enforce the city's no smoking inside bylaw.

He calls the move by Milestone's very progressive because they haven't waited for the government to tell them to ban smoking outside. He thinks it's the most effective thing to do, considering up to 87% of people in Vancouver don't smoke.

Losito says there is new evidence even very small traces of second hand smoke can be harmful to your health. He wishes the province would ban smoking in all public places. Losito had hoped Vancouver would have banned smoking on patios by now but that likely won't happen until late summer.

Hurray!!!!

Cheers!