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FARTS SHOULD BE PENDLETON COUNCIL'S NEXT ORDER OF BUSINESS

It was with great relief Thursday when I read in the East Oregonian that Pendleton's city council took the time to pass an amendment to the city's nuisance ordinance banning marijuana odor.  Clearly, there has been no issue of greater importance facing the city.  Now that this important work has been completed I hope that the council will move on to restricting the other offensive smell that plagues our community: farts.

While farting may be legal in Oregon, many ( including myself ) are offended by the flatulent stench.  Too often, homeowners and businesses fail to contain farts to their property, forcing the rest of us to put up with the smell.  Some habitual farters argue that they need to fart for medical reasons but that doesn't mean my kids should have to smell their farts.  The city council should stop looking the other way and pretending not to notice.

I'm not even going to talk about intensity of farts.  After all, as Pendleton police Chief Stuart Roberts put it: "It's a very subjective standard in terms of whether people are offended by [smells] or not."

This issue greatly affects me as I have a roommate whose recreational farting has been negatively affecting my quality of life for several months now.  He claims that he is taking steps to mitigate the odor after I contacted the authorities.  But unless our elected officials add farts to Pendleton's nuisance code, it's as if he who smelt it, dealt it.  I call on our city council to set aside all other work and address this problem.

Peter Walters

Pendleton