An open letter to Phil Rudd (and other smokers). I watched you on TV after the most recent of your recent court appearances. You were chugging on cigarettes and making light with the media. You were going home for a nice cup of tea after using up yet another of your ‘Get out of jail' cards.

That remains a matter for the courts.

However, Phil, I now appeal to your better sense. When you had finished with your cigarette you flicked it in rather cavalier fashion onto the street. It's your fag Phil, your filth – take it home with you or dispose of it appropriately. Why do smokers think they have a licence to cast their rubbish in public places? Why do they think that because they are on the street they have the right to breathe their toxic fumes all over us?

Consideration doesn't end when you step onto the street. And sorry Phil but being a broken-down rocker doesn't accord you the right to litter. Try harder and in time we may even get to like you.

That came a day or so after I been walking down Willow Street and a young female smoker flicked her butt onto the footpath right in front on me. My suggestion that she might like to pick it up and dispose of it was as if I had trampled all over inviolable right to be a slob. Roll on 2025, a smoke free New Zealand.

W Harrison, Papamoa