Rodney Mayhan took a drag on a cigarette on Monday afternoon, then threw his butt across the sidewalk in front of a plaza near several bus lines and the Harold Washington Library CTA stop in downtown Chicago.
Like other residents interviewed on Monday, Mayhan said a recent decision to allow e-cigarettes at Chicago bus stops but not on the train platforms was pointless.
“It ain’t worth nothing I don’t feel nothing. You can see the smoke, that’s all,” said Rodney Mayhan, 52, of the South side of Chicago.
“I saw on the news you can’t smoke e-cigarettes in public places,” Mayhan said. “I thought that’s why they came out with them in the first place.”
The Chicago Transit Authority Board last week banned e-cigarettes from all CTA property except bus stops. The Chicago City Council already banned e-cigarettes in all public places earlier in the year.
“I really don’t see a point in the ban,” said Anna Bruner, 20, creative writing major at Columbia College Chicago.
Chris Haefeli, 58, who was in Chicago on business from Switzerland, said he smokes regular cigarettes but would not touch an electronic one.
“I heard from a medical service center it’s worse than a regular cigarette,” Haefeli said.
CTA only received one complaint about e-cigarette use this year through May, a CTA spokesman said on Monday.
CTA wanted to conform as much as possible with a Chicago ordinance passed on Jan. 14 that prohibits the use of e-cigarettes in restaurants, bars, most indoor public places, said the spokeswoman, Catherine Hosinski,
Sharon Sims, 54, who frequently rides the bus, said she doesn’t mind people who are smoking.[pullquote]The Chicago Transit Authority Board last week banned e-cigarettes from all CTA property except bus stops. The Chicago City Council already banned e-cigarettes in all public places earlier in the year./pullquote]
“I feel they have a right just like other people do as long as they’re not blowing it into my face,” Sims said. “It doesn’t bother me.”
Tracy Waters contributed to this story.