The Editor,
Re: "Smoke law seems cloudy," Letters, July 27.
I can sympathize with reader Malinda Yang, who was wondering how it is that Richmond schools allow their students to smoke when it's clearly against the law.
The schools get around the law by telling the students they can't smoke ON SCHOOL PROPERTY.
So the students, clever little creatures they are, just walk across the property line and smoke next door - in someone else's yard.
The obvious question to ask the school board is, "Why don't they have a corner of the schoolyard for the kids to smoke, instead of chasing the kids over the line into someone else's yard?"
It appears that it has never occurred to the school board that the kids are now puffing their brains out in someone else's yard - and the board couldn't care less.
And they say so in exactly so many words: "It's not our problem - that's the rule in Richmond schools. If they're smoking on YOUR property, it's not our problem. It's YOUR problem."
Every day, at recess and lunch time, the kids come pouring out of the school yard for their smoke break.
And nobody in the Richmond school system cares one bit - it's not their problem.
RJ Burke Richmond
