Stinking Suspicion

Once again, a public library has been sued for gently asking a patron to leave because his body odor provoked complaints. George Stillman, 80, filed a $5.5 million lawsuit in October against the New York Public Library for feeling “humiliat[ed]” by staff at Manhattan’s St. Agnes branch. Stillman said he views body odor (his and others’) as mere “challenge[s] to the senses” and “a fact of life in the city.” Actually, he’d also denied he had any body odor at all, but a New York Post reporter, interviewing him about the lawsuit, noted “a strong odor.”