No Smoking

Samantha McCandless began smoking when she was 9 after her teenage baby sitter hooked her on cigarettes. More than a quarter-century later, despite being a nursing supervisor at a busy trauma center, McCandless has no plans to stop. Three or four times during a 12-hour shift, McCandless takes a break and smokes in the hospital's designated area. She knows the health risks. "But I like smoking," McCandless, 36, said during a break at Louisville's University Hospital emergency room.

Lorelee Miller watched her children frolic Friday on the sandy playground at Mothers Beach in Marina del Rey, a cigarette in hand. She said she hadn't seen the new no-smoking sign that recently was added to the list of beach rules posted near the lifeguard stand or the palm-sized sign near the beach entrance. And Miller said she didn't realize that the no-smoking regulations for Los Angeles city and county beaches were already in effect, though she was happy to comply.

"Lighting Up at Beach Is Banned," March 25: Santa Monica has spoken. Cigarette smokers are no longer welcome. Too bad. I used to enjoy Santa Monica's many attractions. As a person who loves pristine beaches, I always deposited butts in trash cans along with all of the other debris I picked up in my area, left by nonsmokers who couldn't be bothered with the remains of their meals. I will sadly acquiesce to the city's desires by leaving not one cent of my money within its borders. I will encourage others, visitors and locals alike, to do the same.

A 76-year-old man died and his wife was hospitalized in critical condition Tuesday after an early-morning blaze at their Port Hueneme condominium. Firefighters and police broke into the burning condo on West Elfin Green Street in the Hueneme Bay complex shortly after midnight and rescued Beverly Burleigh, 77, who was lying unconscious partway out the patio door. Robert Burleigh was found in his bedroom, dead of smoke inhalation. The couple's dog also died in the blaze.

Four national health agencies will soon try to answer a question that has mystified Marin County residents for years: Why does this community have what appears to be one of the highest rates of breast cancer in the nation?

Mission Viejo's proposed anti-smoking ordinance appeared to go up in smoke on Monday night. I was there and watched it happen. It would appear that Mission Viejo does not yet have the courage to protect its citizens. While I certainly appreciate the difficulty of the city's position, I feel strongly that this is an ordinance that must be approved soon for the safety of all citizens. No one would argue that this is a simple problem. People have rights in this country. We take great pride, and rightly so, in protecting personal rights.

While our government is making a major effort to discourage cigarette smoking, we, and our children, now see highly respected actors each week on television portraying a doctor, the president of the United States and, most recently, the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, smoking cigarettes. I respectfully submit that Ted Danson, Martin Sheen and James Garner, and their producers, should do the right thing for our children and our country and cease all further cigarette smoking on their television shows.

I just finished reading Eileen Ogintz's whiny Travel Insider column ("Ship's No-Tobacco Rule Sends Trip Up in Smoke," Dec. 24) complaining about Carnival Cruise Lines' ejection of her family members for violating the "no tobacco products allowed" policy aboard the Paradise. What part of "no" did they not understand when they all signed their cruise contracts? Just because one or two fellow cruisers were also sneaky, with their hidden Cuban cigars, doesn't make it OK for Ogintz to raise a stink with Carnival over her family's poor, misunderstood boys.

At a combined running time of four hours and 37 minutes, Alain Resnais' 1993 two-parter, "Smoking"/"No Smoking," may reasonably be called too much of a good thing. Resnais' screenwriters, Jean-Pierre Bacri and Agnes Jaoui, have adapted for the screen "Intimate Exchanges," an octet of Alan Ayckbourn plays, in which all five female roles are played by Sabine Azema and all four male roles are played by Pierre Arditi.

Less than a month after a fire trapped dozens of people at the end of the Seal Beach Pier, the City Council this week voted to ban smoking to prevent a similar potential disaster. The smoking prohibition is believed to be the first at an Orange County pier, an unheard-of safety precaution even at Southern California piers that have been devastated by fire in past decades--including the Santa Monica Pier, Redondo Beach Pier and Stearns Wharf in Santa Barbara.