What are you supposed to do with cigarette butts then? Carry them around in your pocket? I don't think so. I don't smoke (any more) but persecution of smokers has gone waaaay too far already without this additional lunacy. A fag butt is a very small thing, and in the scheme of things not a massive nuisance. But smokers are just fair game: public enemy number one at the moment, so should expect little sympathy when disproportionate measures are taken against them for trivial matters..
Whilst a cigarette butt may be a "small think" in isolation, you only have to look at areas where smokers now congregate to see what quickly happens.
If a person chooses to smoke then they are responsible for making sure they put their rubbish in a bin or other receptacle. Why should smokers be given rights to drop their detritus wherever they wish ? This is nothing to do with the persecution of smokers but simply a matter that society has started to become fed up with people (such as smokers) who feel they have a God-given right above all others to simply drop whatever litter they have on the streets. There are plenty of surveys that now link behaviour with the environment in which people are, and this includes the negative factors generated by rubbish and litter lying in the streets.
It is just chance that the person was a smoker. I have no doubt the Wardens would have acted the same if it had been a McDonalds burger box, or fish and chip wrappings.
This Country is an untidy place, and I for one welcome action by Councils to tackle this sort of anti-social behaviour. Why should I as a Council tax payer, pay for to clean up after inconsiderates, who may well not even live in my area ?
...Too many (usually thick) people minding too many other people's business. It's the same at airports where baboons in uniform are allowed to take x-rays of people just trying to go about their business.
They don't "take" x-rays, you walk through a machine that scans the body.
May I ask how many times a year you fly, and whether you would prefer a body rub down instead ?
9/11 and 22nd Dec 2001 unfortunately chnaged flying beyond all recognition and we will never get back to where we were. That particular Pandora's Box is well open.
I fly regularly and find the differeing levels of security check a real inconvenience for example the scanners and checks at Schiphol are far greater in some respects than at UK airports, yet Brussels seem less so.
BHX always pulls my wheeled laptop case apart on a regular basis and strips my camera down, whereas Schiphol are happy with things taken out.
Some airports require shoes and belts removed, some dont some prefer one or the other.
As I said it is a pain and a definite inconvenience especially when transferring and moreso if the incoming sector is late, but unfortunately although I have some ideas as to how things could be improved, I cannot see any changes in the near future.