California bill would ban smoking in multi-unit housing

Millions of Californians would not be able to smoke tobacco inside their own homes under new legislation that would raise the bar nationwide for fighting secondhand smoke.

No state ever has ventured into personal bedrooms and living rooms with its smoking restrictions, but California is going even further than that by targeting owner-occupied residences as well as rental units.

Specifically, the measure would prohibit lighting up a cigarette, cigar or pipe in condominiums, duplexes and apartment units.

The push would extend a lengthy list of places where smoking already is barred, including restaurants, workplaces, playgrounds, public buildings and cars containing young kids.

"Californians should be able to breathe clean air in their own homes," said Assemblyman Marc Levine, a San Rafael Democrat who introduced the legislation, Assembly Bill 746.

Standalone homes would not be affected because Levine is taking aim at health hazards of secondhand smoke in residences that share walls, ceilings, floors or ventilation systems.

One-third of California's residents live in multiunit housing, and secondhand smoke endangers everyone it touches, Levine said. "Whenever a neighbor lights up, everyone in the building smokes with them."

Landlords already have authority to prohibit smoking in their rental units, through a law implemented last year, but Levine's bill would impose a mandatory ban statewide.

The California Apartment Association has taken no position, but its officials question who would enforce AB 746, how, and what impact the bill would have on habitual smokers or people with disabilities.

"I'm not justifying the practice, but somebody in a wheelchair who smokes in the late evening, for example, is going to have to go in the dark to a place off-site," spokeswoman Debra Carlton said.

Residents of a Sacramento public housing project, south of Broadway, have mixed feelings.

I’ve got to side with Mears here. In your situation what you claim is probably true, but I have had the total opposite experience. Where I live the majority of the most vile of the nanny state loving anti-smokers are on public assistance of more types than just one.

I know a woman who turned down free tutoring for one of her daughters because the home where it would take place permitted smoking - this same woman has been indicted on numerous charges of welfare fraud and convicted of a number of them. She is also of the believe children of smokers should be removed from the homes.

Everyone has a different story - thus broadbrushing never works.

“According to the CDC “The prevalence of current smoking was higher among adults living below the poverty level (29.9%) than among those at or above the poverty level (20.6%)”

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And what does this info have to do with multi and single family dwellings,to which you referred in your earlier post?

Many rural poor live in single family dwellings and many urban and suburban middle class and wealthy live in condos,apartments,and co-ops.

That said,the entire war on smoking is pure,unadulterated madness.

The bigger problem is that these initiatives are funded with our own tax money. Which by law can’t be used for lobbying. Federal law...you can’t take $$$ that Congress appropriated to lobby congressman.

http://www.cspnet.com/news/tobacco/articles/cdcs-controversial-tobacco-spending

ATLANTA — The U.S. Inspector General’s office didn’t like what it saw.
So, on June 29, 2012, it issued an “Early Alert” letter to Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). At issue was whether the CDC was illegally using federal funds tied to wellness programs to encourage local communities to adopt a bevy of tobacco restrictions.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 allotted $650 million to carry out clinical and community-based prevention and wellness strategies. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services tabbed the CDC to allocate these funds through an initiative known as the Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW), a two-year project that evolved into the Community Transformation Grant.
The Inspector General’s Office said quarterly grant reports filed by cities and organizations “may reflect inappropriate lobbying activities using CPPW grant funds.”
The letter proceeded to state that CDC-provided information “appear to authorize, or even encourage grantees to use grant funds for impermissible lobbying. Furthermore, grantee activity reports posted online make troubling assertions that, on their face, raise the possibility that … anti-lobbying provisions were violated.”
The Inspector General Office’s allegation is a serious one. Use of congressional funds in an attempt to enact tobacco regulations is illegal.
Under United States Code Title 18, Section 1913, federal law states that “no part of the money appropriated by any enactment of Congress shall ... be used directly or indirectly to pay ... to influence in any manner a member of Congress, a jurisdiction, or an official of any government, to favor, adopt, or oppose, by vote or otherwise, any legislation, law, ratification, policy, or appropriation …”
Specific Allegations

As an example of stimulus funds potentially going toward lobbying efforts, the inspector general pointed to a graphic-warning-sign ordinance proposed by the Philadelphia Board of Health, which on March 19, 2010, was awarded a $10.4 million CPPW grant. The Philadelphia CPPW Recovery Act Summary reported that the grant would be used in part to “explore new regulations that affect the size, number and placement of tobacco ads in stores and that mandate in-store ads that discourage tobacco use at the point of purchase.”
In other words, the CDC’s own documents acknowledge that CPPW funds were granted to a community intending to use the money for legislative purposes.

I am really jealous of people like you. I was much happier when I had no idea what was going on.

This is about money. Billions in CDC and NIH grant money. Billions in projected sales for Big Pharma with nicotine gums and patches.

Those same people are going after e-cigs. Which involve no combustion. Can’t burn the house down.

They aren’t doing this out of an altruistic philanthropical concern for the health of their fellow man.

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