Posted on 02/08/2008 4:56:14 PM PST by neverdem
Associated Press
A couple in a famed apartment building that has been home to the likes of Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, Igor Stravinsky and Angelina Jolie are suing a neighbor over her heavy smoking.
Lawyers Jonathan and Jenny Needleman Selbin say in a lawsuit filed Thursday that their home in the Ansonia on Manhattan's Upper West Side "smells like a casino" because a chain-smoking neighbor, Galila Huff, filled their apartment and the hallways with smoke almost daily from their arrival in 2003 until last year.
Huff's smoke sometimes came directly into the Selbins' apartment through vents from shared duct work, court papers say. The couple said they worried about the "grave danger" the secondhand smoke posed to their son Charlie, who is now nearly 4.
The attorney couple said Friday that the building's management renovated the ducts in early 2007 and mostly fixed that problem, but the renovations did nothing to address the secondhand smoke wafting through the hallways.
"Visitors regularly comment on the smoke and have noted that it 'smells like a casino' in the common hallway," the Selbins' court papers say.
Huff, who owns Caffe La Fenice at Broadway and 69th Street, admitted when reached at home that she was a smoker. She said she knew about the lawsuit but could not discuss it.
In their lawsuit, filed in Manhattan's state Supreme Court, the Selbins said they complained to Huff about the smoke but she "intentionally, recklessly and/or negligently" endangered their health and that of their son.
The Selbins asked the court to prohibit Huff from allowing her smoke to permeate the common hallway, and to award the couple unspecified compensatory and punitive damages and legal fees.
health nazi ping
“The couple said they worried about the “grave danger” the secondhand smoke posed to their son Charlie, who is now nearly 4.”
Excuse me as I exhale.......NOW, if this couple is in fact ‘honestly’ concerned about the respiratory health of their young child, they *really* need to move out of NYC. I’d bet these parents jog in traffic.
Ahhh! There we go!
sounds familiar. $54 million pants suit mebbe?
They would probably still sue her if she lived 5 floors down.
http://wwwicic.nci.nih.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/cancer#3
How could a person be upset that a neighbor is introducing arsenic and lead into their apartment?
Huff can’t puff, enough’s enough
I know that this strikes you as a strange and weird idea but how about this? If they’re so upset, they can move.
I agree with the lawsuit. Not on health grounds but on the basis of the defandant’s action damaging the value of the property of her neighbors. Either contain the smell and prevent it from stinking up the rest of the area or pay the penalty.
I recently quit smoking. I can smell a smoke a mile away but I won’t blame anyone who wants to smoke. If I don’t like it, I won’t go there. These people should move and get on with their life.
Not necessarily. Having lived one floor above an alcoholic heavy smoker I can sympathize. I’d come home at night to the apartment and you could see the smoke. After a miserable year in which he wouldn’t even open his windows he finally moved.
For those who say *I* should have opened my windows, I tried that. It worked like a chimney and brought in more smoke. We would have to leave the apartment it got so bad.
I suppose as upset as I am about the barking dog next door which keeps me awake all night. Then again, I knew that dogs were allowed in the neighborhood when I moved in....so I’d be quit a whiner if I sued him, wouldn’t I?
Did you know that smoking was allowed when you moved in?
Dear God, will you anti’s please just get your fecal matter in a singular container enough to make it illegal. That’s what you want so just do it and get it over with. We smokers are tired of being shoved around every damn time one of you gets offended. Get off our backs, will ya?
Here’s a thought - how about your folks get together and tell us where we CAN smoke without being endlessly badgered by you nanny-staters. Think you peeps can do that?
Go ahead, show us your great compassion (fascism). Do it...
This was years ago. I was living there and he moved into the woman’s apartment below. Their marraige lasted less than a year. The poor guy had problems.
Cooking food at high temperatures, for example broiling or barbecuing meats, can lead to the formation of minute quantities of many potent carcinogens that are comparable to those found in cigarette smoke (i.e., benzopyrene).[1] Charring of food resembles coking and tobacco pyrolysis, and produces similar carcinogens. There are several carcinogenic pyrolysis products, such as polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, which are converted by human enzymes into epoxides, which attach permanently to DNA. Pre-cooking meats in a microwave oven for 2-3 minutes before broiling shortens the time on the hot pan, which can help minimize the formation of these carcinogens.
Reports from the Food Standards Agency have found that the known animal carcinogen Acrylamide. is generated in fried or overheated carbohydrate foods (such as french fries and potato chips). Studies are underway at the FDA and European regulatory agencies to assess its potential risk to humans. The charred residue on barbecued meats has been identified as a carcinogen, along with many other tars
I understand, years ago there was no such thing as asking someone to ‘not smoke’.
Smoking stinks.
Smoking stinks.”
Car exhaust stinks more.
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