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Smoking Ban Hits Home. Truly.
New York Times ^ | January 26, 2009 | Jesse McKinley

Posted on 01/27/2009 5:14:43 AM PST by reaganaut1

BELMONT, Calif. — During her 50 years of smoking, Edith Frederickson says, she has lit up in restaurants and bars, airplanes and trains, and indoors and out, all as part of a two-pack-a-day habit that she regrets not a bit. But as of two weeks ago, Ms. Frederickson can no longer smoke in the one place she loves the most: her home.

Ms. Frederickson lives in an apartment in Belmont, Calif., a quiet Silicon Valley city that is now home to perhaps the nation’s strictest antismoking law, effectively outlawing lighting up in all apartment buildings.

“I’m absolutely outraged,” said Ms. Frederickson, 72, pulling on a Winston as she sat on a concrete slab outside her single-room apartment. “They’re telling you how to live and what to do, and they’re doing it right here in America.”

And that the ban should have originated in her very building — a sleepy government-subsidized retirement complex called Bonnie Brae Terrace — is even more galling. Indeed, according to city officials, a driving force behind the passage of the law was a group of retirees from the complex who lobbied the city to stop secondhand smoke from drifting into their apartments from the neighbors’ places.

“They took it upon themselves to do something about it,” said Valerie Harnish, the city’s information services manager. “And they did.”

Public health advocates are closely watching to see what happens with Belmont, seeing it as a new front in their national battle against tobacco, one that seeks to place limits on smoking in buildings where tenants share walls, ceilings and — by their logic — air.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: California
KEYWORDS: fascism; medicalmarijuana; medicaltobacco; nannystate; nazis; pufflist; smoking
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Landlords should be allowed to create smoke-free apartment buildings if there is demand, but the government should not be banning smoking in homes.
1 posted on 01/27/2009 5:14:44 AM PST by reaganaut1
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To: reaganaut1

“They’re telling you how to live and what to do, and they’re doing it right here in America.”

Now do you anti-smokers get it? You’re next!


2 posted on 01/27/2009 5:19:05 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin (Save The Earth. It's The Only Planet With Chocolate.)
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To: reaganaut1
Why not just ban smoking period???

Make illegal to ingest any kind of smoke, INCLUDING marijuana...

Oh.... Medical tobacco initiative?

3 posted on 01/27/2009 5:19:31 AM PST by Sir Francis Dashwood (Arjuna, why have you have dropped your bow???)
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To: reaganaut1

If you live on the government, the government will tell you how to live. They dont give anything away.


4 posted on 01/27/2009 5:20:25 AM PST by Bulldawg Fan (Victory is the last thing Murtha and his fellow Defeatists want.)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

Why is tobacco a legal product at all?


5 posted on 01/27/2009 5:21:06 AM PST by Sir Francis Dashwood (Arjuna, why have you have dropped your bow???)
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To: reaganaut1
“They’re telling you how to live and what to do, and they’re doing it right here in America.”

pay attention to the news Edith, it's been happening for the last 25 years of your 72....maybe because something didn't have anything to do with you....now stand aside and get out of the way of the agenda....."right here in America"

6 posted on 01/27/2009 5:21:09 AM PST by Doogle (USAF.68-73..8th TFW Ubon Thailand..never store a threat you should have eliminated))
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To: reaganaut1

Concur. I don’t rent to tenants that smoke, especially two packs a day. However, the government shouldn’t even be involved in that decision, one way or the other.


7 posted on 01/27/2009 5:22:29 AM PST by SampleMan (Community Organizer: What liberals do when they run out of college, before they run out of Marxism.)
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To: Sir Francis Dashwood
Why is tobacco a legal product at all?

..because it produces an enormous amount of money for the government

8 posted on 01/27/2009 5:24:07 AM PST by Doogle (USAF.68-73..8th TFW Ubon Thailand..never store a threat you should have eliminated))
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To: reaganaut1

If the lease said no smoking fine but this is a law that over rides the lessee/lessor contract and creates a hardship on the smoker who may have to move. What’s to say the city can’t ban guns in apartment buildings, or porn, or for that matter Kim Che, all of which could effect the person in the apartment next door.


9 posted on 01/27/2009 5:24:16 AM PST by dblshot
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To: Sir Francis Dashwood
Why is tobacco a legal product at all?

Because of the revenue it produces for GOVERNMENT!

10 posted on 01/27/2009 5:24:18 AM PST by jslade (People who are easily offended......OFFEND ME!)
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To: reaganaut1
...a sleepy government-subsidized retirement complex called Bonnie Brae Terrace Well, there's the stickler. Live under mom and dad's roof and you abide by their rules.
11 posted on 01/27/2009 5:24:23 AM PST by SampleMan (Community Organizer: What liberals do when they run out of college, before they run out of Marxism.)
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To: reaganaut1

If the lease said no smoking fine but this is a law that over rides the lessee/lessor contract and creates a hardship on the smoker who may have to move. What’s to say the city can’t ban guns in apartment buildings, or porn, or for that matter Kim Che, all of which could effect the person in the apartment next door.


12 posted on 01/27/2009 5:25:37 AM PST by dblshot
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To: reaganaut1

Now, how are they going to regulate that? I don’t smoke but if I did, I would just light up and not tell anyone.


13 posted on 01/27/2009 5:25:48 AM PST by garylmoore (Faith is the assurance of things unseen.)
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To: reaganaut1
And that the ban should have originated in her very building — a sleepy government-subsidized retirement complex called Bonnie Brae Terrace — is even more galling.

As a smoker, I say tough crap. If the government pays for your apartment, they get to make the rules. Now, I wish they'd do this for welfare momma's regarding drugs, unpaid tenants (baby-daddies, etc). and kick them the eff out for good.

14 posted on 01/27/2009 5:28:26 AM PST by Travis T. OJustice (Change is not a destination, just as hope is not a strategy.)
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To: dblshot

Medical marijuana? Medical tobacco?

Hmmm...


15 posted on 01/27/2009 5:29:28 AM PST by Sir Francis Dashwood (Arjuna, why have you have dropped your bow???)
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To: All
All of you missed this critical detail!

Indeed, according to city officials, a driving force behind the passage of the law was a group of retirees from the complex who lobbied the city to stop secondhand smoke from drifting into their apartments from the neighbors’ places.

It WAS NOT the government, it WAS her fellow tennants just like many of the smoking bans that are enacted. They are usually ballot initiatives driven by YOUR fellow citizens and voted on by YOUR fellow citizens!

Stop saying that the government is doing this when it is YOUR fellow citizens! The majority rules! Get over it!
16 posted on 01/27/2009 5:29:45 AM PST by TSgt (Extreme vitriol and rancorous replies served daily. - Mike W USAF)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

> Now do you anti-smokers get it? You’re next!

The Anti-Smoking Lobby worldwide has done a MASTERFUL job of executing the “creeping Agenda” strategy (sometimes called the “salami” or “chocolate elephant” or “slippery slope” strategy).

Anybody who wants to achieve significant and lasting BIG change would do well to take Anti-Smoking as a textbook case. (In fact, the homosexual agenda do. Interestingly, Gun Control doesn’t)


17 posted on 01/27/2009 5:29:47 AM PST by DieHard the Hunter (Is mise an ceann-cinnidh. Cha ghéill mi do dhuine. Fàg am bealach.)
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To: Sir Francis Dashwood

Why is Alcohol a legal product? Why is fast food a legal product? The list could go on......

The last time I checked I was an adult and could make my own choices.....

By the way, I typed this while puffing on my Perdomo cigar.....


18 posted on 01/27/2009 5:30:42 AM PST by nevergore ("It could be that the purpose of my life is simply to serve as a warning to others.")
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To: SampleMan
...a sleepy LAZY government-subsidized retirement complex called Bonnie Brae Terrace...

There, fixed it...

19 posted on 01/27/2009 5:32:33 AM PST by Sir Francis Dashwood (Arjuna, why have you have dropped your bow???)
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To: Sir Francis Dashwood
...a sleepy LAZY government-subsidized retirement complex called Bonnie Brae Terrace...

There, fixed it...

Lazy is automatically implied with the term 'government'.

:)

20 posted on 01/27/2009 5:34:14 AM PST by Travis T. OJustice (Change is not a destination, just as hope is not a strategy.)
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