No-sense smoking ban
As I read in total awe of the public’s reaction to this total useless proposed law, I have lost faith in common sense.
In the wide-open air full of pollution on a clear day socked out at sea is a dark brown band, what happens when the breeze brings it inland? Smog generated from the border of Mexico comes up the coast every day. Beach fires at night and fireplaces in homes on the beach burning wood with residue in the air.
Now cigarettes are the focal point. I live on the beach and smoke. I walk and see fewer people than ever smoking. Politicians are avoiding the real needs. Such as surfacing the streets after a large trench is dug up for the fifteenth time in Ocean Beach.
Our recreation center is on the verge of a shut down in operating hours, as is currently going on with our library.
Why is it that our beach is owned by the State of California, yet people think the city has control over its governed laws. Our local representatives are at it again, stirring up the bee’s nest of restless citizens who hate and love to protest.
Laws that are enacted, are hard to change. What is next? You can’t smoke in your house? Rights are being taken away everyday now because people aren’t looking over the long haul of laws that can go hand in hand to strip the citizen of rights.
Lets stop the merchants associations from using our small beach every weekend for events and causing locals to loose parking on their block where they pay high rents. Let’s stop whopping up on citizens to please a few and give local representatives an easy ride from what is really at issue in Ocean Beach and San Diego.

Paul Daughtery, Ocean Beach

Airport on San Clemente laughable, fantastical
I haven’t read anything as funny as Zack Hayman’s op/ed on planting a new airport on San Clemente Island since I last glanced at the U-T’s op/ed page.
For those who fortunately missed his op/ed, Hayman wants to locate a new airport 75 miles from the coast, on an island served by ferry boats, for the whole SoCal region. He says that this is preferable to traffic tie- ups that a new airport at Miramar would bring and that shuttle flights or ferry rides wouldn’t be a problem since we could book these along with our flight reservations.
To which I ask, has he flown anywhere lately? More telling, has he taken a ferryboat anywhere, ever? Does Hayman realize that ferry boats take a minimum of 12 hours to even leave the dock and that most passengers get seasick even crossing a puddle? He says it is a unique opportunity to separate airport ops from residential areas; no noise, no nearby planes, etc. What he forgets is that the whole point of air travel is speed and convenience combined with reasonable cost. Pretending an island is an aircraft carrier defeats all these objectives.
Lindbergh has a lot of life left in it if some things are moved, like the Marines. I suggest asking the Marines to leave, or maybe move somewhere else like Miramar, where they could relocate to a new base and maybe get Halliburton to build it for them. I’m sure Dick Cheney would approve; so would Halliburton.
Or failing that, we could always pave Mission Bay. MB would make a fine airport since its in San Diego, roads go there”-hell, even the trolley and coaster can go there”-and the planes wouldn’t have to change their pattern much. They could even fly down the charming enclave known as Mission Valley on their approach. And Mission Bay would go from being the world’s biggest indoor/outdoor toilet and repository for drunke vagabonds and frat riffraff to a place that actually adds something to the city it intrudes upon. We could name it the Shamu Memorial Field, even.
That’s a better idea than anything Zack baby came up with and it takes far less than the 24 column inches that you guys wasted on him. Happy landings.

Victor Chapman, Mission Hills

Cancelled route comes despite quieter buses
This is to correct my letter you published Feb. 2 about stopping bus services to Sunset Cliffs area. I implied that it was stopped by the people who caused bus service to be severely cut back eight years ago.
When I learned that was going to happen, I called MTS and asked why. The answer was, “Too few riders and too many complaints.” The old diesel buses were noisy and dirty, but a few years ago they were replaced with natural gas buses that are quiet and clear. There should have been no more complaints.
But people move into the area and decide they don’t want buses going by their houses, so they harass MTS. So after more than six years in operation, this route has been terminated by MTS.
Louise Resland, Sunset Cliffs