Not all parks—just two parks with lots of poor people in them:

Cigarettes and dogs just don’t belong on playgrounds and in public parks, period. That’s what some local residents and business owners believe; and now they’re asking the city to completely ban both from two downtown parks.

Several of these residents voiced their concerns during a meeting of the Board of Park Commissioners Thursday, claiming the city’s current rules on smoking and dogs in public places don’t go far enough to keep Westlake and Occidental Parks clean, safe and inviting.

“I have been trying for long time to make Occidental Park a much safer and cleaner place for all the new residents moving into Pioneer Square,” said Charlie Royer, former Seattle mayor and current co-chair of The Alliance for Pioneer Square. “We have done a partial smoking ban, but it’s just too hard to enforce.”

Seattleites are currently prohibited from smoking within 25 feet of any play area, playground, beach or picnic area. But Royer said under the city’s current rules, residents and visitors remain skeptical of the downtown parks. That’s where he thinks having a full smoking ban would help take care of the people he considers to be the biggest offenders.

“These aren’t homeless people or people that live in the Mission we are talking about,” Royer said. “They are not the problem here. The problem is the young thugs smoking not only cigarettes who just turn people away from the park.”

While we look around the office for a big enough “Yeesh” to post with this article, I’ll point out that the parks departments considered a smoking ban in parks three years ago. That controversy brought up major issues. It’s already against the rules to smoke within 25 feet of certain parks spaces with kids and captive breathing audiences—which I support, because smoking smells nasty—but the idea that you’re protecting people from second-hand smoke when they’re more than 25 feet away is debunked by actual science. The ACLU has said a full-scale ban would be overly broad, and parks officials have warned a ban may be disproportionately enforced—like, you know, only enforced for anyone cops consider a “thug.”

Smoking is unhealthy and stuff. I don’t smoke. But it’s legal to smoke! And pushing to make it illegal in select spaces shouldn’t come with repulsively racial, classist undertones. This seems like it’s not about banning smoking, it’s about banning certain people (who look like “young thugs”). If folks are breaking the law, then sure, bust them for their offense. But it should be just as legal to smoke in a park that’s popular with poor people as it is to smoke in a park that’s popular with rich people. Same goes for dogs.

The parks department is slated to issue a proposal by September 26. But the 2010 push for a smoking ban died because it didn’t stand up to reason—this one should die, too.