California Town Bans Smoking in Condos and Apartments That Share Walls

intrepid
reply to post by DerbyGawker

 

It's been my experience that smokers are quite accommodating towards nonsmokers generally. I have always been. Even in areas that are OK to smoke in. My own house if I want my daughter's boyfriend to come over. But things have gone too far. If you are a smoking OK environment and started spewing this tripe don't be surprised if you have smoke blown directly into your face(I would... now). Enough is enough:

i hear ya, in my house i respect my wife, non smoker, i smoke in my room. after dinner, i will have 1 far away from her.
in the dinning/living room, while we talk or watch a movie.

no bedroom smoking or even bathroom smoking. or around kids and dogs.

i carry an ashtray/cig holder. all the time. i don't throw my butts on the ground.
i am very good at not bothering people that don't smoke.

i would love to see some pushback on the anti-smokers. it will come, someday.

DerbyGawker

intrepid

DerbyGawker
chump change for government, divide that by 50 states and you average 2billion/yr/state

Are you willing to make up the difference? Even so, can you speak for other taxpayers? It's been my experience that there are some that whine, "The gov't is cutting services my taxes pay for. They are raising my taxes. Why is their hand so deep in my pocket? They're hammering the smokers? SCREW THOSE BASTARDS."

You forgot to calculate all the other costs associated with smoking that negate the example sum of 100billion.

www.cdc.gov...

Smoking cost the United States over $193 billion in 2004

So under your example, we only made -93billion from smoking including taxes.

EDIT: That's JUST healthcare costs.

edit on 22-11-2013 by DerbyGawker because: (no reason given)

that's bs.

the taxes are supposed to cover it.

it's a messed up stat. like all the smoking stats.
smokers die, before anyone, right?

2nd and 3rd hand smoke? you #tin me?

try ford or chevy.

DerbyGawker
reply to post by intrepid

 

And they're starting to phase out trans fats, yet people still complaint, "but my rights". Oh I'm sorry I didn't know you had a right to the social collection of capital to produce an industrialized chemical food product. If you can make it at home, more power to you.

My point regarding the CDC stats isn't just that tobacco costs ~$200 billion a year in healthcare costs. It isn't that the combined total social costs doesn't exceed ~$400 billion. It's that that is lost economic potential. Imagine what an organized society could bestow upon its self with ~$400 billion.

really?

obamacare ring a bell?

Hah, this thread has gone bonkers, I'm out. People have no self control and they wonder why the government treats people as wards of the state.

SisyphusRide
reply to post by DerbyGawker

 

it is more likely that you are just prejudice against a group of people because of their smell... the facts stipulate that this is truth.

I am going to make a petition to ban cooking Ethiopian food or Chitlins in condo's too... the smell is offensive.

have you ever smelled pork intestine (bowels) boiling with feces still in them?

I think you just made me barf up my dinner.

Diabolical

SisyphusRide
reply to post by DerbyGawker

 

it is more likely that you are just prejudice against a group of people because of their smell... the facts stipulate that this is truth.

I am going to make a petition to ban cooking Ethiopian food or Chitlins in condo's too... the smell is offensive.

have you ever smelled pork intestine (bowels) boiling with feces still in them?

I think you just made me barf up my dinner.

edit on 23-11-2013 by Diabolical because: (no reason given)

come to asia, lol!!

actually, you come to like it.

even smelly tofu and durian.

reply to post by Diabolical


heh! sorry

but it's sure one way to mask the smell, the neighbors will never suspect it... or one could just constantly keep smashing stink bombs in the hallways and stairwell.

they'll welcome the nicotine smoke back... the smoker just have to reverse tactics.

it's illegal to eat durian in public places here.

you can be fined.

very tasty tho, smells bad.

Diabolical
If you thought NYC was tough on smoking, check out California. Smoking is now banned in California if you live in a apartment that has 3 or more units that share a wall within another dwelling.

What will they think of next?

ALAN FARNHAM | ABC News – 21 hours ago

California Town Bans Smoking in Condos and Apartments That Share Walls

The ban applies to owners and renters alike, and it covers condominiums, co-ops, apartments and any multi-family residence containing three or more units.

gma.yahoo.com...

The world we live in.
"Free Will" has pretty much been thrown out the w..indow.

edit on 22-11-2013 by Diabolical because: (no reason given)

... but it's ok to buy and smoke the medical pot the drug-dealer government openly sells?

Or will they sell it to you but won't let you smoke it?

having been in these towns in California, they are upper class, to the point that the SUVs that take kids to school are of the BMW and lexus kind....and believe it or not, they do have a large contingent of a**holes in those towns. I've never seen some many rich people so stuck on themselves...well, except for Dallas and New York city

DerbyGawker
reply to post by kingears

 

@doobydoll, you actually think this is going to generate revenue? It's going to cost more to enforce than the fines afford. But it will save countless dollars on emergency services and Obamacare.

edit on 22-11-2013 by DerbyGawker because: (no reason given)

Why will it cost more to enforce when cops are already out there 'enforcing' laws? Just add this law to their already lengthy list of daft laws, slap people with hefty on-the-spot fines and salivate as the extra loot pours in.

All they have to do to rake in more cash is to invent laws which instantly turn human habits into offences, and makes criminals of everyday law-abiding citizens.

Fines ALWAYS generate revenue for authorities - they wouldn't exist otherwise.

reply to post by Krazysh0t


When I was younger, in my next-door house lived a family of 4. 2 kids, mother and father, who had some issues with alcohol. During holidays in 1999, the father fell alseep drunk on the couch (around 3 AM), while smoking. The whole family died, because of that idiot. Drunk people can´t police themselves.

After that, I promised myself never to smoke inside a room. Just a principle. I am a heavy smoker now, yet I have never broken this principle. Couple of years ago, I walked down from 4th floor every single time I wanted to have a cigarette (roughly 20 times a day, depending on the day). In the current apartment, I am lazy. When I got this place, I had an built-in smoking room made - one room specially set for smoking. Ventilation, floor of special material that can not be lit and a couple of metal chairs, nothing more. It cost quite a bit, but it will ensure that not a single person will die because of my habits.


Such things can and should be prevented. Drunk people usually don´t bother cooking and nearly every smoker smokes more when drunk. During holidays (not new years, as then if firework) vast majority of housefires are set by drunk people falling asleep while smoking inside the room. Overally careless smoking is on 2nd place behind house fires. First is old electrical systems, although luckily from now there is some law requiring having your electricity system controlled/changed by specialists (not private company) every certain amount of years (10-15 or something like that).

On average in the United States in 2010, someone died in a fire every 169 minutes, and someone was injured every 30 minutes (Karter 2011).

About 85% of all U.S. fire deaths in 2009 occurred in homes (Karter 2011).

In 2010, fire departments responded to 384,000 home fires in the United States, which claimed the lives of 2,640 people (not including firefighters) and injured another 13,350, not including firefighters (Karter 2011).

Most victims of fires die from smoke or toxic gases and not from burns (Hall 2001).

Smoking is the leading cause of fire-related deaths (Ahrens 2011).

Cooking is the primary cause of residential fires (Ahrens 2011).

As you can see, cooking is primary cause of fires, while careless smokers cause more deaths. During cooking accidents, the person usually gets to fire faster as he just remembers at some point, that he forgot the oven on or something on the stove. When smoking-related accident happens it is less likely, as a large number of these happen while the smokers themselves are either drunk or high, especially if death happens later.

All the food analogies... chitlins etc. don't hold. Yea, they're disgusting smelling. For whatever reason I'll gag when I smell liver cooking. The thing is, no one cooks that every day, several times a day. As a former, long-time apartment/condo dweller I've had to deal with that and it's tolerable because you know it's going to go away after a relatively short while. Smoking, on the other hand, is a constant. You get a 2+ packer or multiple smoker in a nearby apartment and you are bathed with the smell non-stop. Sorry if you smokers think we're just being unreasonable crybabies but you simply don't get it. And don't want to.

As the OWNER of any type of PRIVATE business, which would include Apartments and Condos, The OWNER should have the right to decide whether or not smoking is permitted. This "law" bans OWNERS as well as tenants from smoking, how is that right? We're not talking about signing a lease agreeing not to smoke inside, which is agreed to by both owner and renter.

I would think a wise business owner would try and accommodate both smokers and non-smokers, but that should be their choice. Enforcement of their "rules" should be the right to refuse service and nothing more. How does this work under this "law" ? The police are called because your neighbor smells smoke and then what ? Do the police now have "just cause" to invade your home to "investigate" for cigarette smoking?

DerbyGawker
reply to post by beezzer

 

Do perfumes emit carcinogens? California has very strict emission standards which exceed the rest of the country, granted it isn't enough given the amount of vehicles on the road but the real measurement is ppm. Society as a whole requires vehicular travel for commerce and industry which sustains us economically, whereas cigarettes do not, and they produce far more localized ppm of carcinogens than a vehicle driving by. This is then made worse by the fact that cigarette smoke contains lingering particles of such size that they are not as easily dispersed by local weather and thus linger and accumulate, especially in a confined location such as an apartment.

Cigarette smoke is just as dangerous when accumulated as VoCs. But I'm sure if you spent the requisite amount of money to remove said carcinogenic particulates to a safe ppm (effectively 0ppm), then I'm sure your neighbors wouldn't bother narc'ing you out.

Imagine an everyday scenario:
I light up in my own home, then run round spraying an air-freshener. Neighbours call cops on me and soon they're banging on my door. I deny their accusation that I have been smoking in my home. Cops can't prove it unless they plan on taping the place off and calling in forensics, so how are they going to enforce it?

And I have to add that I think it's some seriously mixed up law that permits open air spaces and the public to be regularly polluted with poisonous gas emissions from whatever vehicles, but makes it illegal to keep your tobacco smoke to just yourself and keep it confined to your own space. How seriously mixed up is that?

MountainLaurel
Do the police now have "just cause" to invade your home to "investigate" for cigarette smoking?

Concerned citizen informants are always presumed to be credible. Therefore an officer would indeed have probable cause to obtain a warrant if they wished.

@doobydoll, it makes far more sense to allow smoking in public spaces (which are not necessarily commons) than indoor where a common is shared. As I have repeatedly stated, cigarettes produce localized particulate matter and CO whereas out in the open those particulates and CO2 have a far greater area to disperse into unlike a residence in commons that share a wall and it simply accumulates.

Smoking at a bus stop for instance, is illegal here.

reply to post by Diabolical


I’m Canadian, so please forgive me if I’m generalizing too much here, but from what I understand, California is considered to be the most relaxed state when it comes to issuing medicinal marijuana licenses.

Medicinal Mary J by definition, is considered to be medicine so...how what that fit into the ban on smoking?

Are all smokables considered illegal? Is it only tobacco that’s considered a problem? Because It seems pretty hypocritical if that’s the case.

But imho, this entire law seems absurd!

DerbyGawker
I think you're missing the root of the argument. While smoking has not been legally or scientifically linked to cancer, the carcinogens within the smoke have been.

everything is a carcinogen... you're not even supposed to BBQ food, imagine that.

the tailpipe of your car is killing people a lot faster, remember that every time you drive by a baby stroller.

a law requires people obey it... tobacco is not an illicit substance, and owners who are not in HOA will do what they please in the privacy of their own home.

police can't come knocking, tobacco is not illegal...