I Despise "420"

 Yesterday was April 20th, which is celebrated by a lot of people as "420 Day". The distribution, purchase and use of marijuana is legal in New York state. The state treats smoking a joint in public no differently than it treats regular cigarettes. Because of that, the Binghamton YMCA also allows its residents to enter and walk about the building while under the influence.

This, people, is where I just want to sigh a very deep sigh. For several reasons.

1- The smell of marijuana makes me very nauseous.

2- My fellow residents can walk in reeking of it, and high as the proverbial kite, as well. But God forbid I should have a beer with my hamburger at lunch. To enter the building after doing so is still against regulations. If I want to drink, which I do every now and then, I have to wait until the alcohol is out of my system before I set foot inside the building.

3- It's no fun for me to have to put up with that smell when riding a bus or sitting in a restaurant (I've walked out of a few places without ordering food and have not hesitated to tell an employee why). Restaurant owners and managers can legally refuse service to anyone, as long as the reason or reasons don't involve any sort of illegal discrimination. If I owned a diner or cafe, I'd put a sign right in the door telling everyone that being under the influence of any non-medically related substance gets you banned from the premises. 

4- And that damned "420 day"...for the second year in a row, a 1/2 block of Hawley Street was blocked off for those gathered to "partake" (a word I despise, let's say "get high" because that's what it is). This is right around the corner from Isbell Street, which is the side I exit on when leaving the building. This year, just as last year, I could smell the smoke and hear the obnoxiously loud rap music from several hundred feet away. Said "music" included the repeated use of profanity.  As it did last year.

I get it, honestly, I do. A lot of people in this country waited a long time to be able to do what they've done all along but without breaking any laws. But the way they just shove it in the faces of the rest of us sticks in my craw every single day.

To quote George Costanza:

"We live in a society."

Also, for the second year in a row, several adults and teenagers decided that they just had to use spray paint to deface one side of the Broome County Office Building. This isn't street art or a mural. It's graffiti and it's ugly.

Look. If you're doing something that really sets me off, but it's legal, I have to find a way to deal with it. I just do. But when it includes behavior that is in poor taste, or actions that are, strictly speaking, against the law, then you've crossed a line I can't and won't ignore.

This year, just as I did last year, I will be calling the mayor's office to register my displeasure with all of this.

This is where you might ask, and reasonably do so, why I continued to walk through the "festival".

One, it's my city as much as it is theirs. And it's my neighborhood, while for most of those in attendance, it's not.

Two, same as last year. I really wanted a burger and fries from a small bodega on Court Street and walking where I did is the only way to get there without detouring by several blocks.

So, there you have it. I'm upset and I've said why.