Eventually society will become smoke free even at work.

Our local council is hiring litter wardens to impose on the spot fines for people caught dropping litter or allowing their dogs to shit in public. I have mixed feelings about this

We definitely have a problem with people dropping litter around here. The streets can be quite disgusting at times. I'm more than happy for the louts that do this, to be punished for it. However:


Will these enforcers have targets and quotas to meet? Where this is the case, 'enforcers' often turn into bullies very quickly. We've all seem many a story in the papers about over zealous morons with no common sense, trying to issue that one extra ticket at any cost

The money made from the fines will pay for the enforcers and be spent on improving the area.

This would suggest that they plan to make quite a bit of money out of it. The problem should be bad enough for them to make this money by only fining people who deserve it, but if they're on a quota system, it won't be long before this scheme is back in the paper for all the wrong reasons

Will these enforcers only be in the town centre? The town itself is not that bad, it's the outlying streets that have the biggest problems. There are bins in the town and people seem less lazy if they are walking past a bin, but don't seem to want to carry their rubbish around with them if they are five minutes walk away from one

The council has teamed up with Kingdom Environment Enforcement Services, who will patrol both Blackburn and Darwen town centres, as well as parks, open spaces and problem areas, looking for those who fail to clean up after themselves.

Problem areas. Like where Gypsies park their caravans on public land? Which poses the next question
Will they only go for easy targets? We have two big litter related problems around here. Chavs and Gypsies. I can't see these enforcers targeting either
Will they only go for politically correct targets? The local Asian community is even worse than the Gypsies for fly tipping and generally turning their area into dogshit

Enforcers wearing bodycams took to the streets of Blackburn yesterday for the first time and fined 12 people for discarding cigarette stubs. "We have handed out 12 fines around Blackburn already. All of them were cigarette incidents.

12 people fined for dropping fag ends in one day. Nothing else. I don't think people should drop fag ends on the floor, but when you look at the litter problems around here, fag butts are a very tiny issue. I can't believe they spent a day in the town and did not get the opportunity to fine people for anything other than cigarette ends. That would suggest to me that there isn't a problem, but I live here and know there is

Listen to this quote from the company employing the 'enforcers':

Martin McBurney, a Kingdom enforcement officer from Accrington, said: "We will be handing out fixed penalty notices to people who drop litter or fail to clean up dog foul in public spaces like parks or in the streets.

"Eventually society will become smoke free even at work.

"We have handed out 12 fines around Blackburn already. All of them were cigarette incidents.

Did you spot it?

"Eventually society will become smoke free even at work.

I may be reading too much into it. That sentence looks out of place, incorrect, mis-quoted and just wrong.

Or maybe I'm not. Maybe litter is just the smokescreen. Maybe this is just an anti-smoking drive to push smokers out of public areas and make some money off them while doing so?

Could that be the real reason?