An ordinance to ban cigarette smoking in San Francisco apartments failed to get a second vote from supervisors Tuesday, meaning the proposal is dead for now.
Supervisors last week approved the measure, saying that non-smoking residents living in cramped apartment buildings should be free from secondhand smoke. The measure carved out an exemption for marijuana, which cannot be smoked in public spaces.
The legislation required two separate votes, and Tuesday's yes vote was considered a given.
But Supervisor Aaron Peskin on Tuesday requested the proposal be sent back to committee, saying that he had heard from long-time, low-income tenants and worried about the ban's impact. The motion passed 6-5.
When a homeless individual in Seattle decides to set up camp on your front lawn or a drug addict steals from your business, City Council Member Lisa Herbold is looking to make all misdemeanors not just the norm, but legal.And in California, that other bastion of liberal idiocy, is greenlighting prisoner releases 'due to covid':
Herbold now wants to add legal defense to the Seattle municipal code, which would provide an affirmative defense for someone who committed a crime because they needed "...to meet a basic need to survive." Herbold said she wants a jury to hear a defendant's explanations for the crime and for the jurors to decide if the crime was committed to "...supply a basic need."
Additionally, an exception would be added to the new version of the proposal that would allow for the reselling of stolen goods to raise money to pay for a "basic need."
The City Attorney's actions are most likely a major contributing factor of Lindsay's 2019 report entitled System Failure: Report on Prolific Offenders in Seattle's Criminal Justice System which examined 100 prolific offenders who had repeatedly cycled in and out of jail, mostly on misdemeanor charges. The main findings of that report were that all of the non-DUI/DV offenders with the largest number of cases (often 10 or more arrests per year) were suffering from substance use disorders and homelessness and that these individuals had repeatedly committed the same crimes in Seattle's busiest neighborhoods
Seattle Interim Police Chief Adrian Diaz said last month before the council and mayor defunded SPD by another 18 percent that he does not believe the amount of deployable officers Seattle has is safe for the public.
"No. Even when I was pushing out our budget for next year with the city council, I was explaining the need for us to have people that are going through the academy, that are going through our FTO [Field Training Officer] phase, and then being able to deploy them out," he said.
Business owners and residents in Seattle have begun a letter writing campaign to the council, specifically to push back on Herbold's proposal. One business owner wrote:"My personal experience over the last several months since we've moved into and renovated the property has been very frustrating.There is an illegal motorhome encampment near my property, the result of which has been the destruction of private party, illegal camping, theft, dumping of mass amounts of garbage, physical threats and open toilets. I would ask that you consider carefully the unintended consequences of your actions, and recognize our contribution to our cities well being, with the enforcement of laws that allow for a logical and orderly society."A Seattle resident wrote to the council"If CM Herbold's proposed legislation is allowed to pass, I believe that all of the Anarchy that's happening down here will be condoned by the City of Seattle, and the actual number of crimes will skyrocket through the roof. Since the crime won't be prosecuted, your numbers might look good, but the businesses and residents of the community will be suffering greatly. Excusing crime in no way will decrease the actual crime that is happening, it will just excuse it. I watched the City Council meeting this morning and I'm appalled the City is even considering allowing and completely sponsoring Anarchy in our once beautiful city. The City Council is blind about the real problem that's going on down here. Please DO NOT ALLOW crime to become legal!"
"This order will save lives," claimed the ACLU's Cassandra Stubbs in a statement, arguing that across the United States "corrections officials have not taken the necessary steps to protect incarcerated people from the spread of Covid-19, nor have they been honest about the circumstances and risk levels in their facilities."
[Orange County Sheriff Don] Barnes, however, warned that the ruling could result in nearly two thousand criminals - many of whom were convicted of violent crimes - being let back out into the community.
"Many of these inmates are in pre-trial status for, or have been convicted of, violent crimes and will be released back into the community," Barnes declared, warning that the judge's decision "puts our community at substantial risk" and ignores the victims of the crimes committed by the prisoners.
California has over 1.5 million confirmed coronavirus cases and 20,000 deaths. Some 100,000 of these cases and just over 1,600 deaths are from Orange County.
The state has also experienced some of the strictest lockdown rules in the country under Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, who faced immense backlash last month after it was revealed that he had ignored his own coronavirus advice to attend a party with over twelve people.
Comment: From RT: