Schwarzenegger bevecht de anti’s

De anti’s in Californië blijven zich groen en geel ergeren aan de gouverneur van die staat, ex-filmster Arnold Schwarzenegger. Ze schuwen het zelfs niet om via kinderachtige wetgeving te proberen hem de tent te laten verwijderen op de binnenplaats van het regeringsgebouw die hij daar speciaal heeft neergezet om te kunnen roken.

Maar, zoals we weten, is Arnold sterk en weigert toe te geven aan de druk….

A group of anti-smoking organizations gathered at the south steps of the state Capitol on Saturday to make a stink about Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s cigar-smoking tent.

“This is not his house. It belongs to every Californian,” said Debi Austin, a cancer survivor who smoked through a hole in her throat in public service announcements circulated across the country.

Cynthia Hallett, executive director of Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, said the governor is a role model and he is sending the wrong message.

“Mr. Schwarzenegger, tear down this tent,” Hallett shouted from the podium as she looked down to about two dozen spectators who collected at the noontime protest.

The group, which held its first protest on Valentine’s Day 2004, claims that cancer-causing secondhand smoke is wafting from the tent, which is perched in the courtyard outside the governor’s Capitol office.

The smell of smoke, they maintain, is seeping into office windows in the upper floors surrounding the courtyard.

Schwarzenegger, who vows to keep the tent, claims he sometimes uses it for sensitive negotiations and business meetings.

“As long as I’m at the Capitol, I will be smoking my stogies down there, and I will be having people down there smoking stogies,” Schwarzenegger said in a May 8 Fox News interview.