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Grandma breathes easier in smoke-free building  

The high rate of asthma typically found in kids in housing projects is among the factors spurring Boston to ban smoking in public housing.

"You have young children who are living in households with smokers and have asthma or are at risk of developing asthma," said Doug Brugge, a professor at Tufts School of Medicine and author of a 2003 study of Dorchester and South Boston projects that found elevated childhood asthma rates. "Clearly that is not a good thing for those children."

Mold, poor ventiliation and pests also exacerbate asthma, but second-hand smoke is a main contributer, he said.

Meena Carr, 68, who lives in Roslindale's Washington-Beech development, said smoke from other apartments triggered asthma attacks in her grandson, Malik Carr, 9, until she convinced the building to go smoke-free.

"They don't have a choice," she said of children like Malik.

There has been no widescale study of asthma rates of children in Boston public housing, but public-health experts say rates are higher than in the general population.

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Puffers fuming over planned ban  

The Boston Housing Authority plans to open more than 100 smoke-free public housing units in a rebuilt section of Old Colony slated for completion in 2012, in keeping with a vow by Mayor Thomas M. Menino to have entirely smoke-free public housing by 2014.

But Southie smokers have a message for the mayor: You can pry those cigarettes out of our cold, dead hands.

"I try to quit somewhat for my health," Matthew Tilton, 21, told the Herald, leaning out of his building's window after stubbing out a Newport. "But if they force it to, 'If you're gonna smoke, you can't live here,' then that's not right."

Yet, not all smokers were feeling the hate. Some ruefully embrace the ban.

"I'd go for a new unit," said Veronica Szwanke, 27, of Old Colony where, she said, people chain-smoke in the hallways. "I'd quit if I had to," the Newport smoker said.

Five-year resident and 13-year smoker Benito Diaz, 56, said he'd welcome the ban, too - for safety and olfactory reasons.

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• Suit over secondhand smoke targets real estate broker 

Alyssa Burrage says she was smoked out of her new $405,000 condominium.

Burrage, a 32-year-old advertising company employee with a history of asthma, had smelled cigarettes when she first visited the bright, parlor-level condo in Boston's South End in 2006 with her real estate broker. But the broker, she alleges, assured her that the owner must be a smoker and the stench would disappear.

After Burrage moved into the Milford Street brick row house, she says, she discovered the secondhand smoke was coming from one of two men living in the condo below. The men and the condo association refused to fix the problem, she adds, and she had to move out.

Today, in what tobacco law specialists call one of the first lawsuits of its kind to go to trial in Massachusetts, a jury is scheduled to decide whether Burrage's real estate broker is liable for damages. . . .

Neither the real estate broker, Joseph DeAngelo, nor his lawyer would comment on the case. In a joint court filing summarizing the case, DeAngelo and his employer, Gibson Sotheby's International Realty, deny that Burrage questioned him about smoke in the condo. . . .

Burrage also sued the two men in the downstairs condominium - Edward J. Allan, who owns the two-story garden-level apartment, and Michael Schofield, the smoker who has lived with Allan for 13 years - and the condominium association. All three defendants settled with Burrage out of court yesterday

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Details of draft Menlo Park smoking ordinance released 

A draft smoking ordinance under consideration in Menlo Park would ban smoking in common areas of apartment and condominium complexes and deem secondhand smoke a public nuisance, according to a brief outline of the document released Tuesday.

City Attorney Bill McClure gave council members at Tuesday night's council meeting an oral description of the ordinance he is still crafting to aid discussion on public outreach for proposed revisions to Menlo Park's current law, last updated in 1993.

In addition to the apartment and condominium restrictions, the draft ordinance would also prohibit smokers from lighting up in public service areas, such as ATM lines, McClure said.

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• Some renters want Santa Monica to further restrict smoking  

But after the couple made several $100 trips to the emergency room because their infant daughter was gasping for air, they pleaded with the neighbor to stop smoking outdoors, to no avail. Now, contending that secondhand smoke poses a health hazard, they have joined other activists who are pushing the city to snuff out smoking on private balconies and patios in multifamily dwellings.

It's an effort that puts Santa Monica in sync with a growing number of other California cities and counties that have hit smokers where they live. Yet, in the liberal-leaning beach community, the debate takes on added freight because of the political clout of Santa Monica's tenants rights advocates, who contend that landlords would welcome an excuse to evict longtime tenants in rent-controlled units.

The fight might come down to whether such a sweeping smoking ban bumps up against the civil rights of renters. . . .

But a prohibition on smoking on private patios and balconies marks a line that local politicians seem reluctant to cross for fear of offending the influential Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights group in an election year.

Even without an election, said Councilman Kevin McKeown, the issue is especially potent in Santa Monica, where about 70% of residents are renters.

"Do we even have the legal right to disallow smoking within someone's home?" McKeown said. "Can we legislate the breeze?"

Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights has been a political force for 30 years.

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EDITORIAL: Smoke-free plan is solid  

Boston Mayor Tom Menino's plan to ban smoking in city housing may draw some controversy. But the mayor has used some hard numbers to back up his call for a gradual transition to entirely smoke-free public housing by 2014.

Yes, there are critics who argue that the city has no business serving as the smoking police, and that the restrictions being proposed discriminate against poor people who can't afford to move.

But Menino has the numbers - not to mention a growing national trend - on his side.

For example, it costs the city (read: taxpayers) about $600 to clean and prepare a public housing unit before it can be rented to a new tenant. But it costs six times that - $3,600 - to prepare a smoker's apartment before it changes hands (replacing stinky rugs isn't cheap).

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• Smoking ban plan has mixed support 

Residents in 70 apartment buildings throughout unincorporated Santa Clara County will not be allowed to light up in their homes under Supervisor Ken Yeager's proposal this week to ban cigarette smoking in apartment complexes.

But the idea, while cheered by clean air advocates and all but one of his fellow supervisors, is being met with dismay by apartment owners and managers, not to mention many smokers whose last refuge to smoke may now become off-limits.

Patty Delong, who puffs a half-pack a day, assumes her fellow smokers won't like the proposal. "They're going to think the government is in their business, which it is," she said.

She, however, supports the idea. "I think that's great. Maybe now I'll be forced to quit," said Delong, 55, who has been smoking since she was 16. She lives in an apartment in San Jose's Burbank area that would fall under a smoking ban.

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LETTER: WHA smoking ban  

WHA is considering a smoking ban for residents. I feel this would be a violation of my constitutional right to the pursuit of happiness. The Glover Plaza resident who filed the complaint has the right to live in a non-smoking environment. Smokers and non-smokers have rights.

Reasonable accomodations should be made for both groups.

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Wilmington Housing Authority board considers ban on smoking 

Responding to a complaint from a resident, the Wilmington Housing Authority plans to look into the possibility of banning smoking in its public housing units.

At the authority's board of commissioners meeting Monday afternoon, board members asked authority staff to compile information about other housing authorities' smoking policies, but stressed that no decisions had been made.

The Wilmington Housing Authority currently doesn't have a policy regulating smoking in its residential buildings.

"We certainly wouldn't be the only housing authority to ban smoking in its units," said Michael Krause, authority chief executive officer. "It's just something that has to be the preference of the board."

A discussion about smoking in units was initiated by a Glover Plaza resident who said smoke wafts into his unit regularly from residents on either side of him, causing him concerns about his health and requiring him to stay most nights at a friend's residence.

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Santa Clara County wants to ban smoking in apartment buildings  

Santa Clara County took aim Tuesday at smokers and drinkers, with proposals to ban smoking in apartment buildings and toughen penalties for those who provide alcohol to minors.

The smoking proposal was unveiled by Supervisor Ken Yeager, who was sworn in as the board's new president. It echoes a controversial law passed last year by Belmont, which garnered national headlines. . . .

But his proposed ban on smoking in apartment buildings takes its inspiration from further north. Belmont last year became California's first city to install such a ban; Richmond has followed suit, and Menlo Park council members are still weighing the issue. Yeager's proposal differs in that it would not target condominiums or townhomes.

Yeager also wants the county to ban smoking in parks, as San Jose has done, and to prohibit pharmacies from selling cigarettes.

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• China Tobacco enters real estate market 

Analysts warned State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) to move cautiously Thursday after China's State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) quickened the pace of its entry into the domestic real estate market.

China Real Estate Business reported Monday that Zhongwei Real Estate, launched last month with registered capital of 3 billion yuan ($439.5 million), was founded by China Shuangwei Investment, a subsidiary of the STMA, Zhejiang Tobacco Monopoly Bureau (Corp) and China Tobacco Yunnan Industrial Corp. The publication did not identify its sources in the report.

A recruiter surnamed Zheng at Zhongwei Real Estate said Thursday that the company has already started operations and is in need of more employees.

The STMA, along with the China National Tobacco Corporation, is responsible for centralized management of the country's tobacco industry, but it has already been involved in the real estate market. The agency's bureaus in Fujian, Yunnan, Guandgdong and Zhejiang provinces, as well as the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, have all operated property businesses.

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LETTER: Involuntary smoking takes its toll  

While I applaud the efforts of Pennsylvania legislators to protect workers and consumers from the exposure of secondhand smoke, I am concerned about the millions of children and adults who live in apartment complexes or condominiums who are exposed to secondhand smoke 24/7 due to the exemption of private residences in the smoking-ban legislation. . . .

As a public-health practitioner and pediatrician, it is my responsibility to serve as an advocate for children and adults who suffer from preventable deaths, hospitalizations and infections as a result of involuntary smoking. I urge state legislators to reconsider the decision to exclude private residences in the smoking ban and amend legislation to include private residences with shared walls, ceilings and ventilation.

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Indoor concentrations of nicotine in low-income, multi-unit housing: associations with smoking behaviours and housing characteristics (FULL TEXT) 

Objective: An analysis of airborne nicotine measurements collected in 49 low-income, multi-unit residences across the Greater Boston Area. . . .

Results: Nicotine levels ranged from the limit of detection to 26.92 μg/m3, with a mean of 2.20 μg/m3 and median of 0.13 μg/m3. Nicotine measurements were significantly associated with the number of smokers in the household and the number of cigarettes smoked in the home. The results of this study suggest that questionnaire reports can provide a valid estimate of residential exposure to tobacco smoke. In addition, this study found evidence that tobacco smoke contamination in low-income housing developments is not limited to homes with smokers (either residing in the home or visiting). The frequent report of tobacco smoke odour coming from other apartments or hallways resulted in increased levels of nicotine concentrations and SReff in non-smoking homes, suggestive of SHS infiltration from neighbouring units.

Conclusion: These findings have important implications for smoking regulations in multi-unit homes and highlight the need to reduce involuntary exposure to tobacco smoke among low-income housing residents.

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• Little Rock Housing Authority makes Cumberland Towers smoke free  

A new year usually means new resolutions for many people. And for the tenants of Little Rock's Cumberland Towers, if it includes quitting smoking, the housing authority is trying to help them. The city announced the no-smoking policy for the apartment complex on Friday.

They say the move is to promote a healthy and productive lifestyle for their tenants but the initiative is not sitting well with some of the community members. A few times since she started smoking 44 years ago, Julie McCoy has tried and tried to quit and as always she's found that it's easier said than done. But a smoking ban by her landlord wasn't exactly what she was expecting to snap her into quitting. "They could have given us a longer notice; which people could have made changes and whatever," McCoy said.

About 28 of her neighbors at Cumberland Towers are smokers. The smoke-free rule, for now, means they have to go 50ft off the property to light up or huddle under a temporary tent until a smoking gazebo is built in three months.

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Little Rock Housing Authority begins smoking ban at 1 of 3 city-run apartment complexes  

The Little Rock Housing Authority has banned smoking at one of three city-run apartment complexes as part of a plan to make all of its properties smoke-free by 2012.

The ban on smoking at Cumberland Towers in downtown Little Rock began Friday, and similar bans at Parris Towers and Powell Towers will go into effect in 2011 and 2012, respectively.

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