An EMB-145 Captain was distressed that maintenance advocated waiting to write up a 'minor' system anomaly until doing so wouldn't disrupt timely deparatures.

Narrative

No airflow from First Officer's side feet air vent was written up and Maintenance was called. We were boarding and Maintenance was trying to troubleshoot the problem. When they were unable to fix the problem they informed us that they intend to defer pack #1; when I inquired why pack 1 as it is working fine; they said to fix the feet air vent they have to take the whole panel off which will take a while. When I disagreed with them deferring a working pack over a feet air vent they said 'You should not have written it up and for these kind of write up wait till the end of the day when you know plane is going to the hangar for the night'.Now; I don't know if it is under maintenance's scope to defer a pack over a feet vent but this attitude that you shouldn't have written it up or you should wait till the end of the day to write up discourages pilots to report discrepancies to Maintenance which can be detrimental to safety. If safety is #1 priority over on time performance then this type of attitude should be discouraged at all levels.