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Smoke-Free Rental Properties Now Possible Under New State Law 

“A no-smoking policy protects the health of all residents from secondhand smoke and also attracts tenants, minimizes maintenance costs, and reduces fire risks,” stated Sombra Chaney, Chair of the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Imperial County.

Feedback received from tenants in Imperial County shows that they prefer smoke-free housing.

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Grant Housing achieves smoke free designation 

Grant Housing Agency has achieved Smoke Free designation on a majority of their buildings.

Housing Director Debbie Barkley has worked diligently to provide this opportunity for tenants with the goal of 100 percent apartments smoke free in the future.

“Through education from Smoke Free Nebraska, they have emphasized that secondhand smoke migrates,” states Debbie. Air quality studies in apartment buildings show that anywhere from five percent to 60 percent of the air in an apartment unit moves to other units in the building. Contrary to popular belief, secondhand smoke cannot be controlled by ventilation or air cleaning.

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DENNEY: 90% Smokefree is a Contradiction in Terms.  

Jaehak Yu's article in the Daily Californian covering a "smoking analysis" on the City Council agenda is more revealing that one might think.

Two years ago an effort to protect people in multi-unit housing* from secondhand smoke was watered down to pointlessness in the name of compromise.

Representatives of the Rent Stabilization Board insisted in the Subcommittee on Multi-Unit Housing and Tobacco that tobacco industry mythology well-known to be fallacious to health professionals and researchers be the basis for policy, reducing the proposed policy to the comic level of proposing smoking sections.

Embarrassed health professionals abandoned the effort rather than make Berkeley the laughingstock of the public health community. When the smokefree housing effort was initiated recently, the Rent Stabilization Board was back in the mix. The irony is that Senator Padilla's California Senate Bill 332, which is now law, was designed to be educational for people like landlords and those on the Rent Stabilization Board who clearly don't realize that "80% smokefree" or "90% smokefree" slogans are contradictions in terms. Your air is either smokefree or it isn't; there is no safe dose of secondhand smoke.

Berkeley residents need to watch closely as this "analysis" takes shape.

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VIDEO: Housing Authority in Freeport going smoke free  

People living in Freeport public housing won't be able to smoke in their apartments much longer. All units will be smoke free by June 1st.

The Housing Authority of the City of Freeport (HACF) says it had people fill out surveys about the smoking ban and most agreed with the idea.

"Honestly, I've been a smoker for 25 years and I agree totally with it,"

Katrisha Shultheis lives in HACF's Parkside Apartments Complex. She feels the new smoking ban will promote better health and keep units clean.

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Smoking to be banned on Freeport Housing Authority properties  

Effective June 1, residents of properties owned by the Housing Authority of the City of Freeport will not be allowed to smoke on Housing Authority property.

Smokers will not be allowed to smoke in their apartments or building and have to smoke 15 feet or more from HACF entrances.

“HACF's board of directors unanimously approved the smoke-free policy in November to be added in the proposed modifications to the lease,” Larry Williams, executive director of HACF, said in a press release.

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Washington County Housing Authority issues smoking ban 

The Washington County Housing Authority sent a letter to residents this week stating that they must stop smoking inside of their apartments or they will be forced to leave.

The letter states that starting on March 1 residents will not be allowed to smoke in or outside of their apartments. The letter goes on to say that anyone who wants to smoke must leave the housing authority's property to do so.

Tammy McGaw said she was shocked when she received the letter at her Fredericktown Apartment on Monday.

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Freeport Housing Authority going smoke-free 

Secondhand smoke won't bother Housing Authority of the City of Freeport residents anymore. All HACF property and units are proposed to become smoke-free, effective June 1. Smokers will be required not to smoke in their apartments or the buildings and to be at least 15 feet from HACF entrances.

HACF's board of directors unanimously approved the smoke-free policy in November to be added in the proposed modifications to the Lease, HACF Executive Director Larry Williams said.

Survey responses and encouragement from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) prompted the move. HUD issued a July 2009 directive, urging housing authorities to adopt a smoke-free policy, citing a 2006 U.S. Surgeon General report. Secondhand smoke, according to the report, kills 50,000 non-smokers in the United States annually.

In 2005, there were 32 housing authorities with smoking bans in effect. It's estimated, by the end of 2011, there were 285--or 9 percent of housing authorities--with smoking bans

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City Council may recommend analysis on smoking ban  

The Berkeley City Council will consider recommending an analysis on an ordinance that would give landlords in Berkeley the power to ban smoking in their tenancies.

The recommendation, proposed by Councilmembers Kriss Worthington and Max Anderson and set to come up at the council’s meeting Tuesday, asks the city’s Community Health Commission and Rent Stabilization Board to analyze the possibility of crafting a smoke free housing ordinance similar to California Senate Bill 332, which went into effect Jan. 1and which gives landlords the right to make their rental properties smoke free.

According to Worthington, if enacted, the Berkeley ordinance would supplement SB 332 in a more Berkeley-specific manner, particularly in relation to older generations.

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• Household secondhand smoke exposure of elementary schoolchildren in Southern Taiwan and factors associated with their confidence in avoiding exposure: a cross-sectional study 

Methods

In this cross-sectional school-based study, data on household SHS exposure, avoidance of SHS and related variables was obtained from the 2008 and 2009 Control of School-aged Children Smoking Study Survey. A random sample of 52 elementary schools was included. A total of 4450 3-6 graders (aged 8-13) completed the questionnaire. Regression models analyzed factors of children's self-confidence to avoid household SHS exposure.

Results

Over 50% of children were found to have lived with a family member who smoked in front of them after the new law enacted, and 35% of them were exposed to household SHS more than 4 days a week. . . .

Conclusions

The intervention program should enhance school children do actively avoid exposure to SHS in home settings, and more importantly, provide tobacco hazard knowledge to male students to avoid exposure to household SHS for themselves. The results also provide further evidence that Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act should perhaps be extended to the family environment in order to protect children from the hazards of household SHS exposure.

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VIDEO: Update: Controversial Smoking Shelter Under Review 

The smoke of controversy still hasn't cleared from an outdoor shelter built with taxpayer money where smokers in a Douglas County housing community must go to light up. A few residents don't like the location and took their concerns to the Housing Authority Board. Fact Finders first reported the dispute and has this update.

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• Fairmount Apartments smoking ban first for Chattanooga  

Jesse Lawrence has smoked for more than 20 years, but she supports the Chattanooga Housing Authority's policy to make Fairmount Apartments the first nonsmoking public housing site in the city.

"If you know you're living in government property, you have to live by their rules," said Lawrence, who lives in East Lake Courts.

Lawrence, who said she's been trying to stop smoking for a year, is among the Chattanooga public housing residents who will be watching in March when the $4.6 million Fairmount Apartments opens with its nonsmoking policy.

CHA board members are scheduled to discuss the nonsmoking rule at its board meeting Tuesday.

If all goes as planned when Fairmount opens, CHA will become one of more than 285 public housing sites nationwide -- about 10 percent of the country's total -- with a ban on indoor smoking, according to the Michigan-based Smoke Free Environment Law Project

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VIDEO: Non-Smoker Raises Issues with Smoking Shelter 

People in an Omaha apartment complex are getting all fired up. They say a new smoking station violates their rights.

They first took their fight to the county board, but Friday the women went straight to the source of the problem.

It's an issue that smokers and non-smokers want extinguished. It's a difficult walk Michaelle Daverkow makes 10 times a day.

"If I have to keep walking out to this while I'm trying to get myself healed, I'm going to need a chair to be able to get there." . . .

"Smoking cigarettes is my only vice. I don't take the pain pills because they don't work and because they don't allow me to be an affective parent.

The Douglas County Housing Authority say it's trying to keep Woodgate smoke free. That is why it banned smoking indoors.

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Housing agencies, landlords go smoke free  

McCook, Nebraska -- Nine housing agencies and five multi-unit landlords have achieved smoke free designation for their buildings. Housing directors and landlords have worked diligently to provide this opportunity for tenants, according to officials

"Through education from Smoke Free Nebraska, they have emphasized that secondhand smoke migrates," said Teresa Massey, Cambridge Housing Director.

Air quality studies in apartment buildings show that anywhere from 5 to 60 percent of the air in an apartment unit moves to other units in the building. Contrary to popular belief, secondhand smoke cannot be controlled by ventilation or air cleaning.

"These directors and landlords are to be congratulated for this step to protect tenants, especially children, from the effects of secondhand smoke," said Denise Ringenberg, Health Educator at Southwest Nebraska Public Health Department.

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Constitution change bans smoking in all residence halls  

for smokers living in the dorms, things will now be more difficult, due to a recent amendment to the Association of Residence Halls constitution concerning smoking. Currently, all 10 residence halls, including Jardine Apartments, will have to begin enforcing the new smoking policies.

"Constitution Main Motion S was the piece of legislation that was amended," said Sarah Herigon, ARH voting member and freshman in animal science. "This will now clearly lay out that there will be no smoking, of any type, inside of residence halls. This will eliminate people who smoke electronic cigarettes from smoking them anywhere in any of the halls."

Herigon also said ARH had to clearly define what smoking meant. ARH defines smoking as anything that emits smoke or vapor from the body of the device. Falling under this definition, hookah will no longer be allowed within smoking parameters or inside any of the residence halls.

"Personally, everyone is different and has their own style," said Emily Rubeo, freshman in business. "As a smoker, I have my own reasons for smoking, as I know other people have their own different reasons for smoking. People choose to smoke and others choose not to. Smoking for some people is something that helps them de-stress and that is something that shouldn't be taken away."

Herigon said she loves the new policy change.

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Editorial | Tick, Tock On Smoking Ban 

Just look at how far we've come in half a lifetime.

We laugh now that you could once smoke in a plane, a restaurant or a hospital corridor. Family doctors smoked while giving their diagnoses. Bus drivers smoked. So did chefs.

So where are we now? . . .

Around the country, more and more council playgrounds are smoke-free, and now the Auckland Regional Public Health Service has proposed bans in parks, sports fields, malls and pedestrian areas.

It's the next drop of water on the stone, a stone the Government has said will be worn away by 2025.

We've had a huge culture shift. Cigarette smokers are now viewed as the social outsiders, not the other way around.

There's still a long way to go. . . .

You don't have to be a smoker to wonder about a ban of the habit in people's own cars and homes.

Because, if you ban smoking in those places, what indeed is next?

And realistically, given the policing issues, the only way to enforce an absolute ban would be to cut off all supplies.

Ridiculous?

They did it in prisons.

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