The fact that he got defensive, means that he was ashamed.

It's a start....

Thanks -- Isab. Good point. And I sure hope so.

I thought it was great that I came into the place and gave it back to him and called him out on his littering.

I think he felt I'd be cowed by his coming back at me.

Sorry, dude.

I hope people in the place now see him as "the guy who uglies up our neighborhood by treating it like his giant ashtray."

Not certain why he'd call you ugly. You're very attractive. You have a very distinctive beauty, what with the height and the red hair, but beauty all the same.

Aw, thanks! Calling somebody ugly is really the defense of those who have no legitimate argument or are too dumb to make one.

I forgot something in the post. He gave -- as his "excuse" for littering -- the "defense" that there's no ashtray outside the place.

Well, no, but that doesn't mean that you can just dump your butts on the street. If you're a smoker, you need to take steps to not also be a littering asshole -- like maybe by carrying around a piece of foil to put butts in (the same way I carry something to pick up after my dog).

First off you are lovely, apparently Mr Hipster Jackwad's taste is in his mouth. Secondly, people like that have been trained that whatever they wish to do is OK, they are after all beautiful unique snowflakes that make the world a better place by stealing the oxygen of their betters. The truth is, like Mark 'The Animal' McYoung says (paraphrasing), Civilized society tends to be rude because its members are less likely to be killed for their bad behavior.

That was one of my pet peeves when smoking was more prevalent than it is today - throwing butts in the gutter, on the street or sidewalk, or in someone's lawn.

I don't care if you smoke, but damn it, clean up after yourselves!

First time I've ever commented but your readers might be able to have some fun with this ... Carry a tube of crazy glue in your car. I once heard a radio personality describe how, after he saw a driver dump his ashtray on the ground before going inside the building, he took super glue which he happened to have in his car and glued all of the cigarette butts to the guy's windshield. I was able to do it once; words cannot describe the satisfaction.

Couple of things. First, good for you for calling him out. I hate it when people toss their trash all over the place for someone else to deal with. It's rude, and not necessary. All he had to do was walk a few extra steps to find a trash can.

Second, and this probably isn't going to be very popular and I'm not excusing his lousy behavior, smokers get tired of being treated like pariah. I am a smoker, I try to be very courteous when I smoke. I make sure I'm away from the crowds, I find a corner to hide in, and I never leave my butts scattered about. It irritates me to no end, when I go out of my way to find a designated smoking area, to then have some asshole walk by waving their hands in the air, coughing and making rude comments. You don't like the smoke, then stay away from the smoking areas.

I smoke in a corner of the parking garage at my office and a few weeks ago some asshole started taking pictures of me and the license plate on my car, ostensibly to report me for smoking, in a parking garage, that has California Prop 65 warnings posted. Then to add to it...the guy got in his car, and as I was walking to the stairs to go back to work, he literally tried to run me down!

Nobody should be an asshole and force their lifestyle on anyone. If you're a non-smoker, and chowing down on triple chocolate brownie overload sundae, I don't make comments to you about your dietary choices, so stop with the dramatics if you walk by the designated smoking area. Smokers shouldn't be jerks and fling their lit cigarette butts all over town.

My ex smokes.

He squeezes off the burning end, stomps it out, and carries the actual filter till he can find a trash can or someplace appropriate to put it.
It's not ideal, but it's close. The bits he does leave on the ground aren't a huge problem - he doesn't do this on pristine surfaces. The really environmentally bad part of the cancerstick is the filter, but it's not particularly messy to carry around, once the hot part is gone.

I'm not saying the world wouldn't be better off with no trashy bits, btw. I'm just saying it's better than dropping the whole thing.

It is disgusting when someone dumps their ashtray in the gutter. I love the mental image Jenn shared :-)

@Sara: I smoke in a corner of the parking garage at my office and a few weeks ago some asshole started taking pictures of me and the license plate on my car, ostensibly to report me for smoking, in a parking garage, that has California Prop 65 warnings posted. Then to add to it...the guy got in his car, and as I was walking to the stairs to go back to work, he literally tried to run me down!

There's a difference between people who express legitimate concerns about smoking and its effect on tobacco users and others around them, and people who adopt an anti-smoking zeal as a means of flaunting their wholly-undeserved and imaginary moral superiority over others. It looks like Sara ran into an example of the latter (or he ran into her). It's a distinction we should probably be a little more diligent about making.

Well said Sara. I'm like you, I'm a fairly courteous smoker. I try to avoid annoying non-smokers. When I stay at a friend's house, if they don't have an ashtray I stash them all in one spot in the garden and bag and bin them before I leave (or I empty the ashtray if they do have one). I've now even got a keychain personal butt bin to keep them until I find a bin.

I won't say I've never littered, but at least I always try to find a bin. Construction sites don't count :) But if you make people feel like children, they will act like children. When there is only one small smoking area for half a mile of airport terminal frontage (as happened to me recently), of course people will break the rules. When some dipshit architect decides that bins out front will ruin the vision of their grand masterpiece (but there are bins inside for trash!), you'll get cigarette butts on the ground.

It becomes an attitude - fuck it, who cares? And banning smoking in a parking garage (I've seen it too) is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. Um, car exhaust? Except I've seen it too.

Oops, forgot to complete that point.

It becomes an attitude - fuck it, who cares? They hate me anyway. May as well go the whole hog.

To answer your question though Amy, no, he sounds like a dickhead and won't change his behaviour. He'll just continue to abuse anyone who calls him out on it. But bear in mind I would have just apologised insincerely, ostentatiously put it in the bin for you, and yawned. Butts that wash down stormwater just get filtered out at the treatment plant anyway. I certainly wouldn't have called you ugly.

In the interests of honesty!

At least in public spaces, the architects are often to blame. I am thinking of a particular public building I know (but prefer not to name specifically). Recently build, the architect actually did put in ashtrays to accommodate smokers. Directly in front of one of the main entrances.

The problem here isn't even the fact that everyone has to walk through the smoking area to enter/exit the building. The problem is: There is always a gaggle of people standing directly in front of the door. Just one of many features of the building - it won architectural awards, but is full of stupid decisions like that.

By the way, a couple of years ago I tried Amy's idea of picking up someone's cigarette butt and giving it back to them. Hint: You need to be female to do this. As a guy, I narrowly escaped being punched, which would not have brightened my day.

I'm a site engineer mostly a_random_guy, so I've seen worse from architects. How the fuck we build the shit they come up with I don't know.

Didn't you have your pepper spray with you like Amy? No? Oops.

Justified or not, doing anything like returning people's trash is asking for a fight. I'll risk that when necessary - I was out late one night and some asshole called my friend a two dollar whore because she had rejected him. He had six mates behind him (and she was about to unleash her kickboxing talents) but I convinced him that he would go down first, and hard, if they started anything. He backed down, and so did she, thank goodness.

That was worth it, and I was fully prepared to get my ass kicked, but not over a cigarette butt! No.

Drill Sergeants used to be (and, I would suspect, still are) quite adept at teaching young folk how to field-strip their cigarette butts. This involves extinguishing the butt, scattering the remaining tobacco, shredding the filter (if any), wadding the remaining paper and putting it in one's pocket. That, combined with the policing of the area every morning after Reveille formation, whereby one picked up the non-stripped butts (and roaches, truth be told) left by others. Maybe it's time to reinstitute the draft.

"It becomes an attitude - fuck it, who cares? They hate me anyway. May as well go the whole hog."

Exactly LTW.

"There's a sign that read, 'This is your city. Keep it clean.' If it's my city, maybe I like to keep it dirty."---Alan King

As I was about to cross the street, a man smoking a cigarette tossed it, still burning, into the gutter, and strolled into the coffee bar.

I don't know what percentage of smokers throw their butts on the ground -- perhaps it's a very small minority -- but I do see an awful lot of butts on the ground.

What do you think?

I think there's no excuse for throwing your shit on the ground and that people who do this are assholes. Self-centered assholes. Lack of a trash receptacle is not an excuse. Put your butt (or candy wrapper, etc.) in your pocket or don't light up (or eat the candy bar) in the first place.

And do you think, as I do, that maybe, just maybe, he'll rethink his littering? Not that he'll become the sort of person who wouldn't litter. But maybe that he'll think that people might be watching and might hassle him?

I'd say it's about as likely as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi singing "Baby Got Back" in a karaoke bar.

Sara: I am a smoker, I try to be very courteous when I smoke.

Ltw: Well said Sara. I'm like you, I'm a fairly courteous smoker. I try to avoid annoying non-smokers.

Good for both of you. Prior to people in Washington state voting to pass Initiative 901 in 2005, which prohibited smoking in all restaurants and bars, I read comments by many smokers defending their right to smoke in restaurants and bars. I'd always point out that people had the right to fart and belch like crazy in restaurants and bars but that courteous and thoughtful people wouldn't do this just because it's a right. Furthermore, I pointed out that if all smokers were courteous, and voluntarily refrained from smoking in restaurants and bars, there would have been no need for Initiative 901. But because a certain percentage of smokers were selfish inconsiderate assholes, 901 was proposed and passed.

Sara: It irritates me to no end, when I go out of my way to find a designated smoking area, to then have some asshole walk by waving their hands in the air, coughing and making rude comments.

In this day and age, I find the choice to smoke to be bizarre. But I've never done the kinds of things that you mentioned and I agree with you that people like that are assholes too.