So smokers are complaining about being picked on by York's anti-litter teams are they (Evening Press, May 28)? Well, it is about time that a large number of them learnt to stop being so lazy and started getting rid of their filthy rubbish properly.

Not being content with polluting the atmosphere and other people's lungs, how many times a day do you see people just dropping their stubs wherever or, despite the fact that nearly all cars are fitted with ashtrays, throwing them out of car windows without thinking?

The arguments that their aren't enough bins, or that putting stubs into them is dangerous, are hardly valid.

The large non-smoking entertainment complex that I work for provides plenty of bins (designed so that stubs can be extinguished on them first) right by the outside doors, yet one of the jobs we constantly have to do is sweep up the piles of stubs that litter the area.

If a £50 "shock" is what it takes to make these people wake up to their laziness and stop polluting our city then they deserve it.

Jon Allison,

Huntington Road,

York.

Updated: 09:53 Monday, May 31, 2004