Debate Gets Heated on Residential Smoking Ban

By Jonathan Friedman
Lookout Staff

December 7, 2009 -- Rent Control Board member Robert Kronovet failed at Thursday’s meeting to get any of his colleagues to endorse his proposal to write a letter to the City Council in support of a ban on smoking inside the units of multi-family residences.

Although the board did not take any action, it did hear passionate pleas from public speakers on both sides of the argument, in what might have been a preview for a future City Council meeting on the issue.

Kronovet originally wanted the board itself to consider creating a law. But he was told the board had no authority to pass legislation. So he then changed his idea to writing the letter.

Earlier this year the City Council passed a law prohibiting smoking in common areas of multi-unit residential buildings. But Kronovet said this was not good enough.

“This expanded ban will close the gap and put us squarely in the history books regarding tenant protections,” Kronovet said.

Board member Christopher Braun said he sympathized with those affected by neighbors who smoke, but he added, “I worry about regulating what is done in a private residence.”

Those advocating the ban say smoke from other units as well as balconies and patios can seep into other units. What they call “third-hand smoke” then attaches to walls, floors and other items. Whether smoke can escape from one unit to another is disputed, as is the concept of “third-hand smoke”

“I’m sorry, but this is junk science,” J.L. Jacobson told the board. “This idea about going into somebody’s home and saying you can’t smoke a cigarette in your home is an invasion of personal liberty, and it’s a bad idea.”

Former Planning Commissioner Julie Lopez Dad worried about a slippery slope such a law could create.

“It is not a health issue,” she said. “We are talking about regulating or attempting to regulate what people do in their own homes.

"If we go down the road of regulating what we can do in our homes, it is going to be about sexual activity, it is going to be about religion,” she added.

Others spoke about personal health problems they blamed on their smoking neighbors. One woman said she was forced to move in with a friend because of her neighbor’s tobacco use.

Another, Willow Evans, said her health improved when her landlord made the apartment non-smoking.

“It [smoking] is not a private act, and it should not be protected as a civil liberty,” Evans said.

“When somebody is smoking, it becomes a shared community activity that involves multiple people who have no desire to participate,” she said.

The meeting at times became a hostile affair as Kronovet argued with several speakers, including fellow board members, who disagreed with his philosophy.

Former Rent Control Board member Dolores Press accused Kronovet of presenting this issue as “a political free pass to a City Council seat by preying on people’s fears of ill health.”

At one point, Board Chair Marilyn Korade-Wilson told Kronovet, “We’re not here to argue, right? We’re here to hear what people have to say.”

Kronovet replied, “I don’t agree with that ma’am. But I’ll certainly do my best.”