Posted on 10/04/2014 3:46:52 PM PDT by Drango
When it snows, Albert Smith dreads having to put on a couple of coats and sit in his car in the parking lot of the West Mifflin Manor apartment complex to smoke a cigarette.
But after the Allegheny County Housing Authority banned smoking inside his building this week, he fears that's what he'll have to do.
“I'm not on board,” said Smith, 72, a smoker since he was 15 who sat outside the subsidized apartment complex with a pack of Pall Malls in his shirt pocket and a smoke-free sign tacked to the wall behind him. “I pay $400 a month, and then they tell you what you can't do in your room.”
The housing authority snuffed out smoking inside five authority-managed buildings Wednesday, forcing Smith and other smokers to light up outside.
On Friday, that meant sitting on a bench under West Mifflin Manor's covered entrance or dodging raindrops in a designated — uncovered — smoking area.
“Smokers are not a protected class in this country,” said Frank Aggazio, executive director of the housing authority. “There are health reasons that we have; there are economic reasons. We've had three fires in the past. We've gotten many complaints.”
He said smoking caused three fires in the past 12 years at authority properties, each doing more than $1 million in damages. Jean Guentner, 79, died from burns four days after she fell asleep with a lit cigarette and started a fire at an authority-managed high-rise apartment in Blawnox in 2009.
It costs the authority twice as much to clean and repaint an apartment when a smoker moves out, Aggazio said.
Dr. Karen Hacker, director of the county health department, said the smoke-free policy will help address obesity and encourage physical activity, according to a statement Friday announcing the housing authority had joined the county's Live Well Allegheny campaign. Secondhand smoke can create cardiovascular complications and has been shown to cause cancer.
The authority offers subsidized housing to senior citizens and low-income families. Most tenants make less than $15,200 a year, 30 percent of the county's median income of $50,664, Aggazio said.
The five buildings that went smoke-free — Andrew Carnegie Apartments in Carnegie, G.W. Carver Hall in Clairton, John Fraser Hall in Turtle Creek, Ohioview Tower in McKees Rocks and West Mifflin Manor in West Mifflin — have 330 apartments. Aggazio hopes to expand the program to about half of the authority's 47 buildings and more than 3,000 units in the next few years.
The Cumberland County Housing and Redevelopment Authority went smoke-free for its 208 units at the beginning of the year. A few tenants have violated the policy, but there has been little opposition, said Ben Laudermilch, the authority's executive director.
Cumberland County gives tenants one warning before they are evicted for smoking. Allegheny County will give tenants four strikes before they are out, Aggazio said.
Private landlords, too, may rent only to non-smokers.
Liz Hersh, executive director of the Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania, a low-income housing advocate organization, said housing authorities legally can ban tenants from smoking inside buildings. She said it's a sensible policy.
“Being a smoker is not a civil right. It's a lifestyle choice, and it has an impact on other people,” Hersh said.
What about cooking bacon?
What was his quality of life living with emphysema?
The doctors harassed me after my heart attack last December (even though smoking had nothing to do with it). The only reason I quit is because my wife wanted to also quit.
Without a doubt, I definitely felt better and more healthy when I was smoking. I smoked a pack a day for 42 years. My lungs are spotless.
OK, don’t smoke — chew.
And then there is the issue of spitting on the walls...
Sure. It was genetics, bad luck or sunspots. Smoking had nothing to do with it.
Or space heaters and candles.
The big problem has been the fires. It’s very costly to have to relocate tenants and clean up the mess.
If I’m not mistaken, one of the fires was fatal. Woman was smoking while on oxygen. Some people just don’t think. So the government has to do it for them.
As has been pointed out,more fires are caused by cooking, candles and space heaters.
It was actually fairly good. His breathing problems weren’t real bad until about the last few months. He had moved to dryer climes in southern California the last year or two of his life. That helped him with his breathing.
He was not only a heavy smoker, but he was also a full blown alcoholic. I guess nobody told him he was supposed to die young.
A good point — I had not considered that in my response. But it is in fact another instance of the same problem: there is no doubt that the state is paying for his medical care as well, so I say that the health care subsidy on one hand and confiscatory taxes on cigarettes on the other hand is at least somewhat balanced — until the better balance of zero subsidies and zero nanny-state taxes can be reached.
Isn’t PA raising cigarette taxes to support the Teacher’s union? Governments make a lot of money off of smokers and gamblers, mostly transferred from the poor and dumb to the richer bureaucrats and public employee unions.
And smokers save the govt. money by often dying before they get Alzheimers and more costly diseases, and before they receive a lot from Social Security and Medicare. Thank a smoker that your taxes aren’t even higher.
So I take it you're a tobacco nazi, eh?
Good genes
At $400 a month the residents aren't paying for 'em.
Despite all the lies NONE of Tobacco tax goes toward smokers healthcare.
It pays for SCHIP.
Let the people with children pay that farking tax.
I don't mind being called a nazi by those who pimp death or addiction.
LOL!
** Sanctimonious Nanny-Wannabe Warning **
Exaggerate much? Assuming two packs a day and five bucks per pack, he’d save about $300 per month and could afford a luxurious $700 per month apartment.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.