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Smoking Banned From Private Residences In Upper West Side Condo
By
John Del Signore
Published May 13, 2011
Modified May 13, 2011
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By
John Del Signore
Published May 13, 2011
Modified May 13, 2011
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An Upper West Side condo has become the first to ban smoking inside all its apartments, regardless of how long anyone has lived there. The Ariel West, a 32-story glass tower at Broadway and 99th Street, voted 47 to 3 to approve the ban late last month, the Times reports. The ban comes as a new law prohibiting smoking in city parks, beaches, and pedestrian plazas goes into effect on May 23rd. It's already illegal to smoke in your car with a child present, and pretty soon the only place left to legally smoke cigarettes will be in your smoky dreams. And we're fine with that.
A study published in 2009 found dramatically high rates of secondhand smoke exposure in New York City, in part because of the crowded nature of our bustling metropolis. And just because you don't allow smoking in your apartment does not mean smoke isn't seeping in from other units. "Smoke doesn’t know to stop at a doorway," says Harvard tobacco expert Dr. Jonathan Winickoff. "It fills the full capacity of every indoor location in which the cigarette is smoked." Hide your kids, hide your wife, the smoke is coming to snatch your people up!
But not at the Ariel West, where residents voted overwhelmingly 47 to 3 to change the condos bylaws, much to the relief of Dorothy Leeds and her husband, Arnold Weinstock. "My husband and I are both cancer survivors,” Ms. Leeds tells the Times, “so we’re very conscious of our health and we’re very sensitive to this." They live in a five bedroom apartment—yes, most of the units in the Ariel West have lots and lots of bedrooms, as well as spectacular views that your subbasement studio apartment-dwelling eyes would never be able to comprehend—that was plagued by the stench of cigarettes wafting in from a neighbor. The developer sent in workers to seal up vents and bought them air purifiers, but nothing seemed to work. "I voted for [the ban] and I would have stuffed the ballots if I could," says Ms. Leeds.
"My wife and I spoke to people and explained to them that this is a health issue and we’ve got people who are affected adversely by secondhand smoke,” the president of the condo board tells the Times. “And I would say to them that the ability to breathe clean air in your own apartment is a much greater and important liberty than the ability to smoke in your own apartment.” Violators will face a $150 fine for a first offense, and subsequent fines will increase in $150 increments. But that's nothing in the grand scheme of things—over on the East Side a cigar-smoking resident recently settled a feud with his neighbors by agreeing to a $2,000 fine every time he lights up!
For more, we turn once again to committed smokers' rights advocate Audrey Silk of New York City Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment. She gave us this comment, which we have not edited:
Let's put to bed the flagrantly false assertion of "no constitutional right to smoke." While it's true courts have passed down that ruling it's misleading out of context. This judicial opinion has only been attached to challenges over smoking bans, whereas, in that case, there's "no right to smoke" WHERE THE GOVERNMENT HAS BANNED IT. There has never been a case on the general question of "right to smoke" although that too would be misleading. Rather, the complaint would be the right TO BE LEFT alone to smoke (a legal product). But even all this is somewhat beside the point because anti-smokers would have you believe that if a "right" is not enumerated then it's open to infringement. Except anyone familiar with the concept knows that our founding fathers -- leery of people with ideas like the anti-smokers -- abandoned any idea to enumerate rights as it applied to the people and instead applied it to the federal government to have no other powers than those listed. Otherwise, to fool people with "no right to smoke" because it's not enumerated would mean you have to accept that because it's not stated otherwise we have no right to chew gum, no right to roller-skate, no right to sleep as late as we want, and on and on and on. More precisely in this case, no right to have a dog, no right to cook fish, no right to wear perfume/cologne, no right to hold parties (the many feet alone on the floor is noisy enough), and no right to an apartment if you have children. This approach actually backfires on the anti-smokers. According to the Public Health Institute Technical Assistance Legal Center: "Note, too, that nonsmokers also are not recognized as a protected class, so equal protection claims brought by nonsmokers exposed to smoke in a place where smoking is permitted BY LAW (not banned by condo commandos) are unlikely to succeed." In other words, there is "no right to non-smoking." Add to this that we're now talking about someone's home(!) and the sour taste that remark and others in this article leaves in my mouth, and so it should in other's, can only be described as fascist-flavored. Think of what we're coming to people. Be deeply ashamed if you approve. Be as equally ashamed if you are a smoker in this building and you don't revolt for the sake of EVERYONE's (not just smokers) interests.
Tagged
cigarettes
condos
real estate
smoking
smoking ban
Upper West Side
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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