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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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