Yeah it's pretty intense in an area I used to live in around LA (Glendale). I got a ticket for throwing a cigarette out a window of a car (not a littering ticket, but a specific dude-throws-lit-cigarette-butt onto the freeway ticket a year or something ago and had to go to court, pay a fine and do one day of community service (which, given the location I chose, was kinda fun). No smoking on public property in Glendale either, so god help you it's your outside a bar on the sidewalk after a hard night of drinking and want to burn one...
More cities and facilities around LA and in CA have been enacting laws like this over the last five or ten years. I find it super frustrating how public CA colleges and universities, considering how long it takes me to get off of UCLA's campus once I'm there (just cause it's so fucking huge). I always feel guilty breaking the rules, but thankfully no one really seems to care as I'm rather discrete. But I guess it's a good over all policy in terms of discouraging smoking.
But in any case, I find I enjoy both my walks more when I'm not walking and smoking at the same time AND I "enjoy" (truth me told it's more like "hate less") smoking cigarettes more when I smoke them sitting down or standing but leaning on something
I really enjoy taking breaks from smoking. Like whenever I go on an insight meditation retreat I'll not smoke (well, with one exception), instead bringing some nicotine gum or chew. It's super easy not to smoke in an environment like that, and it's really a gratifying little vacation form engaging in one of the most powerfully compulsive behavior's I've ever known.
A reminder that, yes, I am able to live without sucking those nasty things down. I mean, if I was the kind of person who could just smoke a cigarette now and again I wouldn't hate them so much, but my relationship with them is far less secure than that. Shit has a bit of tendency to control me, and as the last drug I use to do that I find it really disturbing sometimes.
Somewhat ironically, learning to mindfully smoke cigarettes (when smoking doing nothing - so no distractions like the phone or walking or talking - but smoking and concentrating fully on the experience of smoking) has helped me cut down a lot. It's even more gross when you're really paying attention to the details involved in how they taste, smell, the texture of the smoke, the feeling of the smoke between your fingers, etc. Becomes far less appealing rather quickly, and I recommend it to anyone interested in cutting down or quitting smoking. I have a friend who's a Chinese psychiatrist on sabbatical at UCLA who say she's going to work on creating a mindful smoking program (harm reduction based) for her practice when she gets back home. There's definitely something to it.
As one of my teachers likes to say, it's impossible to smoke an entire cigarette mindfully
