time takes a cigarette

German AP reports that the European Union is extending the push for 100% compliance for a smoke-free workplace and has issued an edict that calls for the dismantling and removal of all ashtrays mounted on building exteriors and in public parks.  One already cannot purchase a new car with an ashtray or an electric cigarette lighter, and the smokers have been banished from restaurants and have been reduced to shivering, loitering in entryways.  Now cigarette butts will just be strewn all over parking lots and stuffing rain gutters.   I like how that's done, rather than just tossing a cigarette on the street--pushing it down the sewer grates, I am sure, keeps the CHUDS appeased and lets them get their fix without attacking humans.  I hate to think of the EU dispatching bulldozers to eliminate the smokers' outposts.  Ashtrays can sometimes be works of art and I think would be nice to keep around, if for nothing but the nostaglia and anachronism, like those antique metal posts sometimes by exterior doors to scrape horse poo from your boots.