Joe Camel seems to have mostly disappeared from our part of Washington and the Seattle area. And I don’t just mean the actual Joe Camel image but smokers in general. My perception is that the puget sound area just doesn’t seem to have many smokers. Maybe it’s just that the laws on smoking — not inside a building or within 25 feet — have pushed them around the corner where I don’t see or smell. Maybe it’s just my section of suburbia. Either way, I’ve become quite accustom to not having to smell or be exposed to cigarette smoke. I miss that. Try as I may, I quite often picture myself as a child waving away my grandma’s cigarette smoke, plugging my nose and scowling at strangers as I walk down the street while running errands, taking a run or walking my kids to school as folks around me puff away. It’s an unpleasant cultural difference. Smoking is quite pervasive here. Moms with kids strapped to their front are smoking on the way to school. People smoking with their dinner. Teachers standing just outside of school grounds to have a smoke. Teenagers at the playground. It’s everywhere. I tried to explain to the girls the best I could that it’s a different culture and it’s seen as normal so PLEASE try not to hold your nose and give them the stink eye; all the while hoping my stink eye isn’t obvious!
Joe Camel
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I think the Puget Sound area has always been that way. I can only remember one employee when I ran the Jamba stores that smoked. You rarely see it at all even when I’m Seattle, much less the Eastside. Send the girls to school with handkerchiefs and have them tie them around their faces gangster style. (Stink eye optionall)