It's Official -- Belmont Bans Smoking In Some Homes

Source: nbc11

Thought to be the first of its kind in California, the ordinance declares secondhand smoke a public nuisance and extends the city's current smoking ban to include multi-unit, multi-story residences.

Though Belmont and some other California cities already restrict smoking in multi-unit common areas, Belmont is the first city to extend secondhand smoke regulation to the inside of individual apartment units.

Smoking will still be allowed in single-family homes and their yards, and units and yards in apartment buildings, condominiums and townhouses that do not share any common floors or ceilings with other units.

Additionally, smoking will not be allowed in indoor and outdoor workplaces, or in parks, stadiums, sports fields, trails and outdoor shopping areas.

Smoking on city streets and sidewalks will be permitted under the ordinance, except in the location of city-sponsored events or in close proximity to prohibited areas.


Read more: http://www.nbc11.com/news/14307719/detail.html

Close quarters among apartment dwellers, etc. such that you cannot get away from the smoke.

I have a friend who lives in a condo and when her former neighbor smoked in his garage with it closed up, she could smell the smoke in her unit (and they don't have shared ventilation).

i've quit smoking but this makes me want to start again just out of spite...

How about if you opened up you windows and lit up a few joss sticks in your living room?

It's still smoke, and the aroma is bound to irritate somebody.

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I'm still smoking, and I know it's stupid and expensive and really bad for me, but part of the reason I can't/won't quit is because the Government pretends to frown on it while happily jacking up tobacco prices/taxes to fund Health Care! (For the children).
You're doing the right thing, mark414, you quit. Stay quit.
I can't wait until the cops can taser smokers for buying cigarettes. They should then be able to test those demonstrating probable cause for using nicotine to determine whether they actually smoke, then apply the appropriate inducements to discourage same, but not so far as to disrupt potential revenue.

... aren't all laws about what we can and can't do?

Government gone mad...

And many of those residents are sensitive to second hand smoke and despite being in their own house, cannot escape the smoke, carcinogens and asthma attack inducing properties of second hand smoke.

Furthermore, it is totally in keeping with many apartment and association rules that say that what you do in your unit should not adversely affect your neighbors or others outside your unit. If your cigarette smoke affects others outside your unit, you shouldn't smoke in your unit.

That's just the way it is.

Belmont did the right thing. My next place is probably going to be a condo and I'll consider Belmont (10 miles away) for this reason alone.

..it's FULL of carcinogens too.... :eyes:

entire building could be either smoking or non, and smokers' rights wouldn't get crushed, nor would the non-smokers be subjected to the second hand smoke.

If cigarettes harmed nobody but the user, I could go with some of the folks here that think this law is wrong, but those cigarettes harm the smoker, anyone else in their home (including kids, spouse, etc.) and thanks to smoke traveling, harm others, especially asthmatics, outside the apartment.

they should be outlawed. Until then, I think it's unjust that smokers are penalized and targeted even in their homes.

Where the smoke is not likely to travel and affect others.

I know many people that had to move because a neighbors cigarette smoke was impacting their health (a friend in Burlingame in fact whose neighbor smoked on his balcony). That's what this law was designed to address.

Does the constitution protect their right to smoke if it affects others in their midst?

No.

going to disappear off the map soon, I don't think - discriminating against smokers isn't fair.

I actually believe both sides have valid arguments, but since this recent action protects the rights of the Non-Smoker, that's why I suggested total smoking or non-smoking apartment buildings and condos. Concessions need to be made to the smokers as well.

There is no instance where a smoker's wish to light up trumps another's right to not breathe cigarette smoke.

they should be outlawed. Until then, I think it's unjust that smokers are penalized and targeted even in their homes.

instead of in a free society in the most democratic nation on earth.

YOU MUST COMPLY. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.

:eyes:

if the Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons hadn't harnessed fire... it left smudges of smoke from 35,000 years ago on their otherwise awesome cave paintings. But there are, nevertheless, traces of smoke on the ancient cave walls, so it should all be hosed down with nitric acid, right away.
There Can Be No Smoke.

...of which the fumes can give you lung disease...oh the humanity!

I think for the fire hazard.

Quit acting like this stuff is unheard of.

and run it 24/7?
Maybe a bus with a big V12 engine?

Morons

I only smoke cloves very rarely, socially (and sometimes I hang out at a local hookah bar), but this is bullshit. The government has no business telling people they can't smoke in their own damn homes. Where the hell else is someone supposed to smoke?

This is going to be a nightmare to enforce, anyway. God forbid I use a freeper term here but this really is Nanny State run amok.

If you own your own bar, it's perfectly acceptable and moral that the Government tells you how you can use your property.
There's really no limit to how much government is necessary, especially when it comes to fucking dirty smoker swine.
Edited to add: swine

...either that or you are on the wrong board....

Like mine. :evilgrin:

they're so much more comfortable.

As to the OP, well, that's just stupid.

I do not need a babysitter.

Granny briefs rock! :woohoo:

w/purple panties in any way (Mark Foley?, Larry Craig?, etc.?), you are automatically suspect!
No Purple Panties For You!:spank:

Let me wear a pair of purple panties and I bet they will want to ban that someday.

No smoking in your single residence?

:grr: land of the free my a**!

It's the Health Care industry behind this nonsense.

when they run out of smokers to tax?

tobacco taxes are easy to pass and get little outrage from the public.. wonder how hiking beer/wine/liquor taxes would be received?

and see what happens

And if using tobacco is eliminated it will produce the result intended. And the tax monies produced will not be needed although the effect of tobacco use will not be eliminated immediately at the point tobacco use stops.

beer use - if you increase the tax on beer/alcoholic beverages to fight alcoholism and drunk driving, and the tax is high enough to cause people to stop drinking alcohol then the usage of alcohol abuse would be eliminated

sorry - but my main point was the tax on cigarettes is that it is an easy one to pass because of the stigma attached to it and provides cash for the state/fed coffers no matter what usage the money is earmarked

making tobacco illegal will have the same result as banning alcohol did with prohibition - a black market for it will emerge and people will find a way to get it just as they did during prohibition and the same way it's done to buy/use drugs

the last tax hike on cigarettes had people buying cigarettes from reservations, over the internet, or they went and rolled their own cigarettes.
yes, some people did quit smoking, but more went the above mentioned routes - states started going after people - not for smoking - but for evasion of taxes because they were losing tax revenues

and not all of the tax on cigarettes is earmarked for health programs - like schip

It may happen in my life time.

When the market is not sustainable for tobacco companies they will stop producing. And when they stop producing tobacco growers will stop growing. When that happens only a small group will still find a way. But tobacco is not an easy product to grow and produce. Farmers won't be subsidized by the government at that point and they won't consider tobacco a product worth growing. Beer and liquor is much easier to produce when the ingredients used are more common.

grow tobacco in your flower bed. When I went to vist my relatives in the Azores every garden had tobacco plants. I grow it in my flower beds for the flowers. Good grief.

portuguese relatives would hang leaves up to dry till they turned brown, then roll their own. Might not be as refined as what you can buy but probably had less harmful additives as well. Not hard at all.

is that their subjects would quit using tobacco. The government gets to vilify and excoriate and expunge from social memory any of the filthy dirty swine who smoke tobacco, but what's more, they deserve whatever's coming to them because they can afford it.
Is there any reason the Police shouldn't be allowed to taser citizens who get too close to where the terrorists sell tobacco to their own kind?:shrug: edited to correct punctuation

The average American hates smoking and that goes for the average voter.

This isn't some nebulous government action, but spurred by people tired of being exposed to cigarette smoke and representatives that are emboldened to protect them from it.

Thank God.

Americans, but I don't know anyone who wants the govt to do a damn thing about it.

okayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

most people I know are mature and have a bit of libertarian to them as far as the govt telling them what to do in minute detail. We are older and are used to making our own decisions about our personal behaviour. I have friends that smoke and others who can't stand smoke. When we get together the smokers hang out on the outside deck and the nonsmokers hang out with them in the open air or inside. We all get along famously without the govt telling us how to handle it because we are intelligent adults.

And a majority of those think this was necessary.

So, those ARE people and their opinion counts and those are the people that the voters in Belmont (people also, though not people *you* know) chose to make this decision.

Also there were 15 people at the hearing for the law that came out to support it.

So, I just think your circle is not very diverse or perhaps it doesn't account for how unpopular and offensive smoking is in California.

but she hates the antismoking fundamentalists as much as she hates smoke. She does not hate smokers, as long as they are considerate, though she will give an inconsiderate smoker the what for.

Pass strict air quality standards for nonsmoking sections in restaurants; in apartments with shared ventilation, require the designation of the building as smoking or nonsmoking. There is no need for blanket bans.

I don't know where you live, but as far as I know, the taxes on liquor in all it's forms are outrageous.
Here in the Twin Cities, you have to have a thick wad of bills to pay your bar tab and tips, you have to smoke outside, then you read in the paper (MPLS Star-Tribune) that the city needs more money, so property taxes are going up 14%, so pay up now, drink-pimp! (Bar-owner).
I imagine it would be fairly easy to whip up more outrage against people who buy alcohol, why not? Most people buy it with money they earned, but why should that make them somehow more innocent than scumbag-inferior dirtbag smokers?

not that there are any actual poor people in Belmont, but the more middle-class ones will be living in the affected multi-unit residences, while the more affluent remain free to puff away in their single-family homes. Booooooo!

city limits....I smoke and I don't really like going into hotel rooms and apartments that reek of stale smoke, I would rather that the government would provide some real assistance in smoker cessation programs

that would solve both problems...sort of.:silly:

except for allowed circumstances.

That's way more annoying than cigarette smoke.

How about crying babies? And cooking with smelly spices?

And it really bugs me when people wear socks with sandals--lets tax sandals.

And dog farts...dog farts must be taxed to pay for, well something.

A co-worker of mine got pulled over for having the car stereo too loud (listening to Justin Timberlake, which ought to be worth a citation just for bad taste ...).

I can't wait until my son gets a ticket for bumping his subs ...

Bake

I'm not saying I agree with the law in the OP, it's just that your analogy doesn't fit.

That being said, the practicality of enforcing this particular law seems daunting.

just kidding, I agree but too many farmers need our lungs to provide an income...if they don't grow tobacco then they might switch to poppies

the death penalty seems to be popular again...since the international community is against it..and of course WE hate the international community??

When I was in a hotel recently, there were smoking and non-smoking rooms. We weren't even close to a smoking room. Well, needless to say, the smoke seeped into our non-smoking room anyway to the point where it reeked and we were coughing.

Why should people have to put up with that in their homes?

I do not smoke. My SO does. She can sit right next me with a cigarette and I don't even notice. I don't smell it and it doesn't make me cough.

Did you report that incident to the hotel mangaement so the could get the HVAC system repaired? Because there was obviously some problem if you were having smoke pumped into your room.

I think you must be used to the smoke because you live with a smoker. Smokers generally lose their sense of smell about it, and a lot of them don't realize how far it travels and how much it can affect other people. I have walked through a cloud of smoke on the sidewalk and then smelled it on my clothes hours later.

My husband told the guy at the front desk about the smoke, but he just shrugged. We had our hands full with other things at the time and let it go because we were only there for a few days. I can't imagine living with that constantly, though.

travels a long way. Many people who don't smoke but are around others who do, such as their significant others, don't smell it because they are used to it. I find it ridiculous on their part to imply that we are lying when we say it affects us negatively. I can even smell a smoker or one who is around smokers when they pass me in the grocery store. When I was a kid, nonsmokers were able to smell my parents' stale cigarette smoke lingering on my clothing. I even had people ask me if I smoked because of it. And I never smoked.

It's 42 years old and smokes more than I do!

Otherwise, no. Your car might be too cool and you might look too cool driving it, and that would adversely affect the perceptions children should have in such delicate matters.
Zigaretten Rauch ist jawohl verboten in eure Automobilen!

On a ciggy pack I bought in Berlin (not to smoke but as an artifact).

to smoke in your car if kids are present.

NT!

This ordinance will benefit her and remove a risk to her health, so I'm all for it.

However, this is somewhat troubling,

smoke in THEIR apartments than under my window. x(

and then all demanded a jury trial?

thing on public property, i.e., on the beach or in a park. I think it was Calabasas, CA, but I could be wrong.
It's become very popular in the hundreds, if not thousands of ordinances passed, (and those under consideration) that smoking in public (outside your basement/panic room) is something that only filthy, inferior taxpayers would do, definitely not something aware and enlightened citizens should be subjected to and victimized by.
I can't wait until the police can taser smokers, then torture them under questioning. Smokers are Our Misfortune!

to your health. Hell, it abetted the slaughter of almost a million people in Iraq, and constantly fills your mind with bullshit and lies, and brainwashes you into buying numerous toxic products that you don't need. It has greatly helped to prevent universal health care--lack of health care in turn is responsible for millions of deaths. Then there's outgassing of furniture and rugs, lead paint on your children's toys (good 'ol "free trade"), your neighbor's use of toxic pesticides on lawns and in gardens, yours and your neighbors' slavery to gasoline, and to electricity from coal-fired power plants--pollutants that are killing the planet--and a million other things that are really, really bad for you--right there in your own home and neighborhood--but that won't be banned because they make BIG CORPORATE PROFITS.

It's weird to me, this fanaticism about OTHER people smoking. I can see wanting smoke-free restaurants and workplaces, etc. That makes sense--so people who don't smoke don't have to go into smoke-filled places. That's fair. But there are so many OTHER THINGS that are SO MUCH WORSE for you than someone smoking outside, or in their homes, or in their cars, and there are so many BETTER ways to deal with inconsiderate smokers (who litter, for instance) than this fanatical approach of trying to force people not to smoke, by banning it in all venues. I think it's kind of psycho. Maybe Americans have just lost so much control over their lives, and their government, to vicious, fascist, global corporate predators, that they're projecting all their righteous Puritanical anger on smokers. It's displacement. Reasonable regulation, yes. That makes sense. But fear of cigarette smoke seeping through your walls? That's nuts. It's like the "communist under every bed" thing--McCarthyism--in the 1950s. Fear of pollution of your "precious bodily fluids"--when your bodies are already toxic stews of Corporate pesticides and chemicals. You can't do anything about that--or about George Bush--but, boy, you can hit on smokers and make THEM feel like the swine of the earth.

gonna defend this one? This is an absolute restriction on freedom. THIS is why I'm against smoking bans in restaurants. It's a slippery slope. I'm a non-smoker who is highly allergic to smoke and I'll say that if something like this happened nationwide, I would prepare for action.

If you are blasting your sound system and the cops come over, you don't have the right to keep doing that either.

This is not without precedent, not by any means.

People here are making smoking sacrosanct.

Enough to be harmful to someone else? Your stereo analogy is nonsense.


Stop being an enemy of freedom. If I do something legal in my house and other members of my household consent to it, why in the world would you EVER want to make it illegal?

Some people smoke on their balconies and the smoke goes into the neighbors house.

Some people smoke with all the windows closed, but their air intakes and air vents spread the smoke through the ventilation system.

Imagine smoking in one room of your house with the door closed, do you expect that the smoke won't affect other rooms? In an apartment, one apartment can affect another.

and I've never experienced any of this--- I lived for a year in a hotel-turned-apt where the door between rooms was still there. The person next door smoked and I could smell it once in awhile, but it was never in enough volume for me to have a reaction.

If you live in an Apt or condo, part of the deal is that you are sharing the bldg with other people and you have to live with it. The whole bldg, or world, does not revolve around your personal eccentricities. A very small percentage of the population is sensitive enough to cig smoke to justify making a law controlling what people are doing in their homes.

With so many people willing to accept restrictions on their freedom, I wonder why they complain so much that america is becoming a fascist state?

Part of "the deal" should not include someone's right to expose you to it, in your home.

You are so insistent on the right to do whatever you want in your environment, but I think that right stops when you can't stop it from spreading to a neighbors abode.

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And if they did, they'd have a fair basis to complain about me.

As for how I make the neighborhood, I have a role in seeing that others don't disturb their neighbors and that's why they elected me. So, I guess they vote for me so that I can make the neighborhood shitty.

Or maybe you don't know what the hell you are talking about.

If it can't, light up - we have too many people on Earth anyway, and why deny you your choice as long as it doesn't touch others' right to not be exposed to cancer?

If people want to smoke in the privacy of their own dwellings, leave them alone! Would it be better to have them smoke in public? And, how do they plan to enforce this?

The mind reels. This is a sign of creeping facsism. :crazy:

This raises, I think its a good idea.
Hypothesis: second-hand smoke kills people. Most peer-reviewed science agrees with this point.

Hypothesis: multi-apartment buildings generally don't have separate ventilation systems. in most building codes a 'habitable' apartment must have operable windows, this way, in the case of a power outage, no one suffocates in their apartments. This means that indoor air pollution can become an issue in multi-family dwellings.

Fact: meth labs have been known to poison neighboring apartments, when the meth lab is in a multi-family dwelling. It is believed that the off-gassing of some chemical byproducts can penetrate porous walls, ceilings and floors. I'm not a scientist, nor have I ever run a meth lab, so I assume that this is a bad thing

Theory: if meth fumes can kill people who have nothing to do with the drug, and second hand smoke can kill people who have nothing to do with the drug, and both are likely to enter the air of neighboring apartments, why should we permit it. In this case I think the public health needs outweigh the needs of someone being able to light-up.

The govt gets to kiss my ass as to what I do in my own space...

If you burn down your apartment, that's fine, too.

The question is: what of all the smoke damage to other people's properties?

With the above analogy, would you feel comfortable with a meth lab (literally) next door?

Personally, I don't smoke, and didn't permit people to smoke in my apartment (when I lived in one). At the same time, I would still smell someone's cigarettes (a known carcinogen). I don't smoke. In the possibility I get cancer from it, who is responsible?

Finally, the biggest question is what we all have as our responsibility to our community? Or is it fair to not care for the welfare of those we (personally) impact.

These are all rhetorical, and not meant as a personal attack, just something to think about.

Arson is as well...

Apples to apples please...

and not just the ones who smoke it either.

My analogy had to do with gasses from one apartment leaching into another. Aside from making every apartment a clean room, I don't know how anyone can stop that.

So does that mean that because someone else wants to enjoy their smoke, that I should have my health compromised for it? Even if I don't smoke? even if I have never entered my (smoking) neighbor's apartment?

Who is responsible for the lethal gasses that leaves one apartment and enters another?

The unfortunate thing, really is that people are being forced to legislate things that are simply good sense. To that end, it does not make good sense to let me kill my neighbors due to my own guilty pleasure. Its unfortunate that we have to ask what is the greater good, to have the right to do whatever we want in our apartments, (while killing others), or to have a conscience about those around us.

Yes, I reserve the right to do what I want in my house, assuming *I do no harm to others* while excercising that right. We cannot say that about tobacco.

This is a case of the government poking their noses where it doesn't belong.

What's next? Banning certain sex acts in apartments because of the potential health hazards?

The government gets to stay the hell out of my abode. I think you Americans have a document that pretty much makes that law doesn't it?

You have never had that right and I think you are being melodramatic in suggesting that you have.

...until then I'll hang on to the 14th amendment thank you very much.

Try again.

And second hand smoke is harmful. You prove that it isn't.

...then we can talk...

Bottom line, the govt gets to stay out of my home..

I don't have to prove that smoke from your unit harms me.

....there's plenty of proof of people who've lived with smokers and NEVER had any problems and as far as people's pets...well really there's all the proof you need. :eyes:

Try again mister.

...look it up and get back to me..

Smokers don't have the right to force others to inhale their smoke. Period.

...simple, see?

Especially if you have one belching out carbon monoxide and pointed at my apartment.

Although, I'm going to wonder how you got the car into the elevator to the fifth floor, and into the house in the first place.

oh, wait, that didn't work out so well the first time it was tried.

Blanket bans are not necessary; requiring apartments with shared ventilation to be designated as smoking or nonsmoking would suffice, just as strict air quality standards for nonsmoking sections in restaurants and bars would protect nonsmokers just as well as a blanket ban. But that wouldn't appease the antismoking fundamentalists, since it doesn't punish the smokers for their sin...

Maybe we should make them wear a scarlet letter "S" on their clothes, while we're at it.

(BTW, I'm a nonsmoker, have never smoked, smoke gives me a headache, and my wife has asthma that is easily triggered by cigarette smoke, just so you know where I'm coming from.)

I never said arson. I said that it is totally legal to buy (for example) a condo in an apartment building, fill it with paper and light it ablaze. Assuming you are careful not to let the flame burn your neighbors walls, its totally legal to do.

Arson is when you try and collect insurance for it, and that's the illegality.

But what of the smoke damage, from between the walls, the cracks, the moldings (placed to hide imperfections, as it were). Who becomes responsible for it? You didn't put the smoke there?

Unfortunately, I'm cranky today, so I'll say this: I hear a lot of people who value their own privacy, their guilty pleasures, and their own selfishness over another's life, and that speaks volumes about why the US is the sad state it is.

..and even BIGGER contributor to the sorry state we're in...

I never said arson. I said that it is totally legal to buy (for example) a condo in an apartment building, fill it with paper and light it ablaze. Assuming you are careful not to let the flame burn your neighbors walls, its totally legal to do.

Arson is when you try and collect insurance for it, and that's the illegality.

But what of the smoke damage, from between the walls, the cracks, the moldings (placed to hide imperfections, as it were). Who becomes responsible for it? You didn't put the smoke there?

Unfortunately, I'm cranky today, so I'll say this: I hear a lot of people who value their own privacy, their guilty pleasures, and their own selfishness over another's life, and that speaks volumes about why the US is the sad state it is.

... if you use it in ways contrary to the law.

If the law says no using tobacco in multi-family dwellings and you use in a multi-level dwelling you are not using it in a legal manner.

Otherwise, no - smokers have no right to force others to be exposed.

4 layers of 5/8 drywall separated by 6 inches, a layer of at least R-19 insulation, texture, and a minimum of two coats of paint. Are you telling me cigarette smoke will pass through that? Fire won't pass through that.

Through the hallways, on the balconies into adjoining units.

Shall I go on? It doesn't seem to do any good because none of the folks going apoplectic are willing to acknowledge that their smoke goes anywhere outside their dwelling.

Maybe some of you should go have a smoke and calm down and then calmly read what we are saying here.

ooooooooooooooooooo

Whew, I've never seen such a wall in most 1950+ era apartments (When did the international style come to the US?) , usually its 2"x4" (nominal, which is less than 2x4) with 5/8" wallboard. Typically between apartments, per BOCA, its specified as a 2 hour rating (meaning it will withstand Fire (not smoke) for up to 2 hours) and will have either more wallboard or insulation to beef up the rating from a one hour wall.

Wallboard might minimally resist fire, but does not do so well against moisture or particles smaller than water (hence the issues with Indoor air pollution, toxic mold, etc). Does smoke get through it? Quite easily, especially over the course of hours, and days. If you open up the wallboard of a lifetime smoker, you can see the smoke in the gypsum...

or is that banned as well ?

I think the issues are a bit different as they pertain to the whacky weed.

I don't know if medical marijuana is legal in California, and the science is mixed on the effects of second hand marijuana smoke.

For me, its a issue of the rights of the community to stay healthy versus the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" among others.

Personally, I don't care if someone wants to smoke, Tobacco, Cannibis or crack. I do care if they are causing damage to *my* health. Its a moral issue to me.

It has never been shown that marijuana smoke causes cancer - in point of fact, it's been shown to SHRINK tumors (which are, of course, cancer):

http://www.alternet.org/story/9257/

Pot Shrinks Tumors; Government Knew in '74

In 1974 researchers learned that THC, the active chemical in marijuana, shrank or destroyed brain tumors in test mice. But the DEA quickly shut down the study and destroyed its results, which were never replicated -- until now.

The term medical marijuana took on dramatic new meaning in February, 2000 when researchers in Madrid announced they had destroyed incurable brain tumors in rats by injecting them with THC, the active ingredient in cannabis.

The Madrid study marks only the second time that THC has been administered to tumor-bearing animals; the first was a Virginia investigation 26 years ago. In both studies, the THC shrank or destroyed tumors in a majority of the test subjects.

Most Americans don't know anything about the Madrid discovery. Virtually no major U.S. newspapers carried the story, which ran only once on the AP and UPI news wires, on Feb. 29, 2000.

Secondhand tobacco smoke, on the other hand, causes cancer. This is not a debate among scientists; it's a fact.

We are in agreement: smokers can smoke, they just have no right to force others to do so secondhand.

"The issue was first brought to the attention of the Belmont City Council last July, when residents at a senior housing complex complained of complications arising from secondhand smoke in their apartments."

Good for them...

No one should be allowed to force another to breath in their carcinogens...

A agree with those who say people should not be subjected to pollution wafting into their homes. OTOH this kind of thing inherently discriminates against people who can't afford to live in detached housing.

I guess if the state can ban smoking for its prisoners, a city should be able to do the same to its poor.

had been around in the 1700's we would have never had a country. It seems that everyone is so damn self absorbed.

We eat food with all kinds of crap in it that we can't even pronounce, recalls every week for ecoli, salmonella etc, hormones in milk, GM food in most processed products, millions of cars and power plants belching out toxic gases, smog,pesticides galore but god forbid you can smell smoke from a neighbors apartment every now and then. Wusses.

I am turning into a cranky geezer and am sick of the nitpicking nannies who want to control every damn minute of my life with pissant ordinances. I am all for reasonable restictions but I value my freedoms and am willing to put up with a lot to keep them. Once you give an inch they will take a damn mile. It never stops.

is simply to force the non-smokers to walk through the smoke of the smokers as they gather outside to smoke. Where previously non-smokers could simply avoid places where people smoked.

Now they need to ban sugar, salt, caffeiene, obesity, lethargy - make people exercise, car fumes, heck cars etc.

We'll be so much happier in a safer world.

Just think any minute they'll ban internet because news and that kind of stuff gives people unwanted worry and can cause stress which causes heart problems.

that want to live in the movie Demolition Man.

That are affected by second hand smoke. Yes, the council does want everyone to stop smoking, period, but the move towards the law came from complaints in senior citizen housing where smoke was affecting other neighbors --and it does.

I lived next door to smokers in my condo in Walnut Creek not too long ago and they smoked right outside my window on their balcony. Not only could I smell it with my window open --I could smell it with my window closed thanks to air vents and whatnot. Thank God they moved or I would have complained to the HOA.

Nobody should have the right to put cigarette smoke into another's home.

Your analogy is false.

Sort of pales next to a million dead and trillions stolen, but there you have it.

There is no difference between the radical right and the radical left. Both want to restrict certain freedoms. The right: Abortion and GLBT relationships. The Left: Guns and Smokers.

When one goup loses its freedoms (especially in their own homes). It creates a slippery slope for all freedoms.

This is one law that I and all my loved ones can literally LIVE with. I am already, ONCE AGAIN, watching another friend die in inches due to smoke and it is okay with me and even welcome by me to eliminate any smoking from the face of the earth. Ban republicans and other similar idiots as much as possible and make me happy too. Tobacco is a killer and is a delivery system for nicotine which is a vicious addicting drug we should never have invented and is on a killing par up there with napalm. Deal with it.

is now compulsory.

Gonna drink me a beer, light me a cigarette, and day dream about living in a free country again.

I hate smoking, but this is fucking stupid. Banning both smoking in designated, elective smoking bars and in the home is getting a little too controlling.

from Tom Robbins' "Still Life With Woodpecker."

The "heroine, one Princess Leigh-Cheri, says (and you'll have to imagine the whiny voice) "Ya know, kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray!" And the guy she's with replies "Yeah, and kissing a self-righteous person's like licking a mongoose's ass."

Any smoking thread on DU is bound to be mongoose-central.

Quite the observant social critic, that Tom Robbins.