When I was a kid on a midwest farm, we used to burn our trash in a barrel down at the far edge of the yard, as far away as possible from the picnic table under the cherry tree where we sometimes ate, when the weather was nice.

Who would want to be smothered in all that smoke while scarfing down mom’s pot roast or “beanie-wienies?”

A cigarette is not a trash barrel, I know. Compared to that from a trash barrel, the amount of smoke emanating from one tiny little cigarette is, well, tiny.

But, a restaurant is not a back yard, either. It is an enclosed space. The “tiny” amount of smoke from one cigarette is thereby magnified.

Who wants to eat a meal in a cloud of smoke?

Certainly nonsmokers do not, and even most smokers would tell you that everyone should wait to light up until everyone has finished eating.

Which brings me to the proposed smoking ban in Natchez public places, particularly restaurants.

A ban on smoking in such places should not be necessary—smokers, like myself, should realize that not everybody wants to try to breathe smoke and enjoy the full flavor of, say, a ribeye steak, or even peas and carrots, at the same time.

We don’t puff smoke between bites, do we? So why should we expect nonsmokers to do it? We should just take our smoke outside, where it is usually more pleasant, anyway.

We should be, in a word, courteous.

We don’t need a public smoking ban. We need a return to common courtesy.

That isn’t going to happen, so I suppose we need laws.

Yes, we smokers should simply take it upon ourselves to “ban” smoking in the presence of nonsmokers. A lot of us already do that.

But common courtesy works both ways.

If smoke from our after-meal cigarette is bothering you, just stand up, walk over to us, and tell us, in polite terms. How hard is that? Spare us the hostility and the name-calling.

We really don’t have to be enemies.

I’ve been reading the comments regarding this issue in the online edition of The Democrat, and it seems like the only argument against a restaurant smoking ban is that it would be throwing another regulation on businesses.

That’s a rather specious argument, at best.

A smoking ban isn’t regulating the restaurant’s behavior, it is regulating human behavior that a majority of Americans, and Natchezians, find noxious, or at least obnoxious.

We don’t allow folks, say, to walk naked into restaurants, or to take their pellet guns into Ryan’s so they can take potshots at the portrait of dear Scarlett O’Hara between trips to the buffet (Ryan’s has been smoke-free for a year, now, by the way).

Finally, yes, smokers have the “right” to smoke. But nonsmokers have the right to enjoy a meal without having smoke dulling their senses of taste and smell, too.

Smokers, we should unite on this issue and simply take our smoke outside when we need it.

I don’t think that’s too monumental a sacrifice for us to make.

Robert Gard is a Natchez resident and a smoker.