Apparently there’s a proposed law would make it illegal (nationwide) for people to smoke in public housing (which mostly means apartments).
Basically, you want to smoke in your own apartment? If this law passes, tough. You can’t.
I know this is nothing new, I seem to recall this idea being batted around for a few years, but this is the first time it seems to be taken a bit more seriously.
I’m not a smoker myself and I despise smoking…,and even so, I’m not too hepped up about this…
…but it strikes me to be a little TOO censoring.
If a person is paying rent and living alone, I don’t see much harm in smoking in their own living space.
Yes, I realize the apartment doesn’t actually belong to them and they can just as easily go outside, but this world seems to be closing the net around smokers more and more until it seems they won’t have anywhere to smoke.
As a non-smoker, it’s not so much the smoking right I care about rather than just censoring things and huge groups of people in one fell blow. I mean, it’s this today…and then tomorrow, what? Can’t drink in bars? Can’t drink at all? No more pornography in your house? No more smoking in private residences?
I don’t like the idea, but it is the same kind of restriction on indoor smoking used elsewhere. Seems like a waste of time though, and just another punish the ‘poor’ restriction that doesn’t address the problem that we this much poverty to start with.
It does seem unenforceable, but contrary to the above post, is pro poor. Smoking does not just effect the individual but demands compliance from others who have to smell that shit. The poor have little option in housing but should not be subject to that stench.
After all we are all in this world together, we want to make it better or all of us, that includes not making it miserable or those who live under the same roof as us.
But it’s not “your own” apartment. My landlord has it in my lease that no one can smoke in this house. It’s HIS house, after all. Actually, in my neighborhood, I see quite a few home OWNERS smoking on their front porches. The smoke can get into everything, even the sheetrock, carpets, drapes. Ask Paul Ryan.
Mileage may vary. I believe you can get kicked out now (with marijuana being illegal) in at least some housing projects so my assumption would be that legal or not, smoke would be smoke and you could get the boot. I am told that enforcement varies greatly but I couldn’t find a “chart” or anything to back it up. The below link covers the basic rule today.
I live in a privately owned apartment building, not low-income or public housing apartments.
There was only one person in all 60 units who was smoking inside her apartment, and it was disgusting. She happened to be on the first floor in the same stack of apartments where I’m on the third floor. The smell came up the kitchen plumbing, so I could smell the stench in my under-sink cabinets where all my cookware/silverware/baking supplies are. I had to clean and defumigate that cabinet every few months. At least nothing I keep in there is porous so nothing retained the smell, but it often smelled like it was in the wood so I would take everything out and wash and spray the innards.
Not to mention the stench in the stairwell whenever she was actively smoking. It was bad enough and people complained enough she had her son put extra weather stripping and foam around the door that opened to the stairwell. It helped, but didn’t stop it completely.
I saw the building manager after the woman moved out (management company was nice and moved the lady to an elevator building because she couldn’t manage the stairs to her 1st floor apartment any more) and she told me everything she had to do to make it livable for the next person. Not just re-painting and slapping more polymer on the wood floors - they had to do that de-stinking base coat paint first and strip the floors for a complete re-finish. Once all that was done, the blinds all had to be replaced as they were brown instead of the eggshell that all the other apartments have, and the kitchen and bathroom cabinets had to be replaced.
So there’s legit damage done from smoking inside, and that’s why a lot of landlords these days prohibit smoking, it’s not just courteous to the other residents, it’s mitigating tar and whatever other stuff from cigarettes sticks to every surface.
Plenty of private apartment buildings have this rule too. My current apartment, in a small 30-unit complex where mostly everyone knows everyone, has this rule, largely obeyed, I believe.
My previous apartment, in a rather large 150-unit low-income complex with lots of scumbag tenants, had this rule, largely ignored and rarely enforced. Yecch.
My previous apartment before that had a rule: No smoking anywhere on the premises not even outside in the courtyard or in the parking lot, or even on the sidewalk out in front. They enforced it as best they could. The property was adjacent to a shopping center, so tenants walked across the parking lot to the shopping center parking lot and smoked there.
These were all private apartments.
I like no-smoking rules because not only does tobacco smoke stink, but I always worry if my neighbor is going to burn the building down in the middle of the night.
My neighbor in the next-door unit smokes like a volcano, but always outdoors on his deck, as far as I know. The smoke wafts into my apartment and fumigates me. Even as I type this, I’m starting to notice some.
For those who have managed to tune out the USA’s tobacco conversation of the last 30 years (I legally smoked in a San Francisco movie theater (yes, first run) in 1979):
The space in which you can legally smoke is being reduced. The monetary cost of your addiction is going up.
It’s absolutely do-gooder fascism. We are done with smoking regulations. In fact, they need to be rolled back. These anti-smoking Nazis are not going to stop until they get tobacco defined as a Schedule I drug. It has nothing to do with public health, it’s all about feeling powerful and having your beliefs endorsed as the right ones. I hope smokers band together and start filing discrimination lawsuits. Use the legislature’s own political correctness against them.
I view it the same way I view drug testing welfare recipients.
I could maybe see a ban in common areas, like hallways or lobbies. No one should have to put up with it just because they are poor. But, at the same time, restricting pleasures from poor people is just as wrong.
See my post above. Restricting to just inside one’s own apartment does not keep others inside their own apartments from second hand smoke. I got lungfuls every time I left home and came back, and every time I opened my kitchen cabinets. I am two floors above that apartment. The guy below me had to be getting it through his floors. If I had kids, I’d have been pissed and put up a shitstorm about it.
It damages the property. The ones who have to maintain the properties should be able to restrict damage causing activity.
Due to the expense of it here, I don’t consider anyone who smokes as poor. Cry me a river how little money you have that shit’s something like $11.50 a pack. Anyone who can manage a $200 to $400 a month habit is NOT poor.
Is there currently a law that prevents landlords from having a no smoking requirement on their properties if they receive government subsidizes?
It’s great that people want to look out for the good of the property owners but I’m not aware of any law that prevents them from looking out for themselves.
The proposal is just another attempt to make poor people less free than the rest of the country. If they want to make stupid decisions and smoke they can go through the effort of finding subsidized housing that allows smoking.