Posted on 05/21/2006 7:42:17 PM PDT by SheLion
BANGOR - A majority of Maine residents - 79 percent - are nonsmokers, a statistic provided by the Smoke-Free Coalition of Maine on Thursday to local policy-makers, tenants and landlords to get them involved in making their public and private housing facilities smoke-free.
The coalition's conference, attended by nearly 50 people, was designed to reduce the involuntary exposure of tenants to secondhand smoke, which can seep through ventilation systems, walls and electrical outlets. The coalition hosted a similar conference on Wednesday in Portland.
Twenty-eight percent of Maine's housing is renter occupied, Jim Bergman, keynote speaker and co-director of Smoke-Free Environments Law Project in Michigan, said. Bergman is a lawyer who has worked to define the rights of landlords and tenants, which includes a landlord's right to make a facility smoke-free.
"Smoking is not a problem a landlord can mitigate," Bergman said. "[Tenant] complaining always continues."
Smokers are not a protected group under Maine law or anti-discrimination laws, Bergman said, who offered numerous statistics. When a smoking tenant moves out, it costs a landlord $600 to $1,500 more to clean and repair a residence than when a nonsmoker leaves.
Sam Schors and Billie Jo Stanwood, managers with the Fickett Property Management which has rental units in Jonesport, Cherryfield and Columbia Falls, said they agreed with Bergman about the costs incurred with renters who smoke.
"The cost is far more to repair units after smokers move out, even when compared to pet owners," Schors of East Machias said. "You could spend up to $4,000 in carpet replacement just because of cigarette burn holes.
"One of the reasons we're here today is to see how we can transition to smoke-free housing."
The Smoke-Free Housing Coalition began in September 2003 with impromptu meetings motivated by a number of tenants who were frustrated by their exposure to secondhand smoke.
In fiscal year 2006, the Partnership for a Tobacco-Free Maine funded the coalition with a $35,000 grant to continue its efforts and marketing through events such as the conference, which was only the second of its kind in the nation.
The American Lung Association gave the state of Maine "straight A's" on its report card, the only perfect score in the nation, for its tobacco prevention and spending efforts, smoke-free air, cigarette tax and youth access laws.
Gov. John Baldacci, during his keynote address which kicked off the event, praised the coalition and the Partnership for a Tobacco-Free Maine for their work focused on prevention.
"We never had the opportunity in our state, because of tight times in economics, to fight for prevention; we were always trying to just plug holes and stop crises," the governor said. "There are now so many people working together under the same umbrella, landlords and tenants working together to protect children and tenants from secondhand smoke."
After his speech, Baldacci was presented with a green hard hat, designating him the "Top Construction Engineer for Smoke-Free Housing" in Maine.
The Mount Desert Island and Ellsworth Housing Authority is one of 16 housing authorities nationally to commit to the nonsmoking idea and today is expected to approve revisions officially making its Bar Harbor Housing Authority smoke-free, Linda Kelley, assistant director of the MDI-Ellsworth Housing Authority, said Thursday.
"We met very little resistance," Kelley said of the Bar Harbor tenants. "I was kind of surprised."
She said she hopes to have the four other authorities, Ellsworth, Southwest Harbor, Tremont and Mount Desert, smoke-free in at least two years.
Or, honestly, are there other things which set it off, like industrial cleaners, waxes, the fumes from new carpet or vinyl?
I know the pollen this year almost gagged me, along with all the dust the farmers are kicking up since they started planting. It's been a rough spring. Very dry ( not now, we finally got rain), but the dust and the pollen was killing me.
I'm just hoping that the diagnosis is correct or the diagnosee is not going to avoid the real problem allergens, only the PC one, with less than optimal results. Certain organic solvents, especially those from vinyl and in perfumes get to me too.
Oh yes. And how I hate to get behind a stinky truck and can't pass. The smell can just about kill me. A big whiff of Clorox will put me into a tail spin as well. Holy cow! Strong stuff, like ammonia.
Neither the smell of diesel fuel nor the smell of auto exhaust (in the open) used to bother me, but since catalytic converters, I can barely stand to be next to a car at a stoplight on my motorcycle.
More than a minute or so and I start getting nauseous.
What is coming out of there, anyway? Has anyone checked, or did they just test for the smog gasses the converters were designed to break down?
Well, as long as there are smokers, they don't have to research! Just blame any illness on the smokers. It's all Bush's fault. Get my drift? LOL
Precisely my point as well.
The real damage done by this, though, to smokers and non-smokers alike, is that while the medical industry pursues the tobacco boogeyman, all other sources of carcinogenic compounds, and even fundamental research into cancer itself are given second rank to the tobacco jihad.
Medicine, as a discipline, and the consumers who rely thereon are all getting the shaft, but the money flows where the BS grows.
Yep. The bigger their lies the more grant money they receive. They all can kiss my arze!
"I'm just hoping that the diagnosis is correct or the diagnosee is not going to avoid the real problem allergens, only the PC one, with less than optimal results."
Gosh, so you all are diagnosing long distance and without even seeing the patient? What highly talented folks.
I'm sorry you all suffer allergies or reactions to solvents or whatever (cigarettes??), but that does give you a taste of what it's like for people who can't tolerate cigarette smoke (I'm not one but my wife is).
"involuntary exposure of tenants to secondhand smoke, which can seep through ventilation systems, walls and electrical outlets."
Damn that killer smoke. It'll sneak through your electric outlets,even dry-wall, and get you every-time.
Really, though, we knew it would come to this. Total control over your life. Choice? What choice?
If the landlord (property-owner) doesn't want smoking, there's not much to do about it, but move, as it is the landlord's choice.
But, I so despise these busy-body-do-gooder- moralists.
They lie, cheat and steal. They will not stop until this includes everything, even the house you own.
When are people going to wake up. They don't care about your health. They care about control,(and the mighty dollar) it is really that simple.
No, I am not diagnosing anyone.
It just flat out amazes me, as a scientist, that with the tremendous number of potential allergens that massive numbers of people come into contact with on a day-to-day basis, only one is acknowledged by the medical community on a widespread basis as the cause of everyone's ills.
I am not saying that in some cases the diagnosis is not correct. But in all?
Did you get new carpet? A new car? Paint recently? Have the house fumigated? Is there mold present? Use a Dry Cleaning service? Do recent landscaping? Have new shrubs planted? New furniture? Old furniture? Have a wood shop?--(some wood dusts are real nasty). Refinish hardwood floors? Install a laminate? Get a new house? Do you have one of those air freshener doohickeys plugged in somewhere? etc., etc., etc.
If whoever made the diagnosis did not ask these questions and more, they were not very thorough.
It has been my experience that cigarette smoke is assumed to be the whole problem.
Break down ass/u/me and you see where those assumptions generally lead.
Your mileage may vary.
What? What are you talking about!
I didn't diagnose anyone! I was just saying how the pollen and the dust flying from the tractors this spring has been bugging me.
I sure wish some of you people would read better and understand what you DID read! Geeze!
Actually, our local restaurants went no-smoke many years before it became law. Good 20+ years now. here customer base increased substantially.
The difference between theory and actuality?
Well, thank God I own my own home and have no little ones running around. They can just leave me alone.
I just feel sorry for renters when they just move in, sign a lease and then the landlord won't grandfather the new law he put in place to ban smoking.
It's like the RATS always saying it's Bush's fault. Well, if it isn't his fault, it must be the fault of some smoker somewhere. LOL
Where do you live? MILO? haha! You must live in one of those one horse towns off the Interstate.
In this case, though, the person says he/she had allergy testing done and cigarette smoke was positive. It also sounds like the person has since had years of experience and when he/she has a hard time the one constant is the presence of cigarette smoke.
I realize about the potential allergens. In fact, cigarette smoke isn't just one potential allergen. If I remember correctly there are many, many, many chemical compounds in a commercial cigarette.
"One of the reasons we're here today is to see how we can transition to smoke-free housing."
Just make it so. But, be aware that you may lose some people's business. It's the trade-off that is a judgement call.
Similarly, when restaurants and bars are allowed to choose, and some choose to be smoke-free, everyone wins. The smokers have the ability to find a place where they can be comfortable, and the non-smokers can also do likewise. When it is forced on everyone, a lot of businesses lose.
These gents need to understand that their decisions will have consequences, which may be positive or negative in effect. They need to make their own bed, and then lay in it.
In my POST # 8, I wrote a detailed account explaining that, altho once a smoker - who understands the addiction - that after finally finding out cig. smoke was what was causing my VERY REAL and debilitating bouts of chronic sinusitis which, at the shortest, lasted 2 weeks, with fevers 105 and penicillin, (doctor's bills) - and having to change jobs and curtail many social/political events pre-bans - You think I should accept these circumstances without complaint because I think it's "all about" me - and that your rights to smoke supersede my right not to be ill, etc.
You said you are "I am bothered by people that think their "rights" are more important than mine. I am constantly exposed to these people"?
On the other hand, my NOT smoking does not make anyone uncomfortable nor ill - your logic doesn't hold water
A person's RIGHTS does not include making someone else ill. Iee., your 'rights' end where my nose begins. Your 'rights' in this matter do not equate
$162 million in taxes. In theory someone's going to have to make that amount up. Bread, board and booze tax in restaurants?
Last place I worked, yes - all new carpets, formaldehyde glued cubbies, no windows allowed open, etc...Since I retired - 8 years ago - not ONE case of sinusitis.
and your point is?
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