Poor you!
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.
If you rent to another smoker, it will be much less expensive to prepare, because the new tenant won't/shouldn't care about the smell.
The point was that many different chemicals can cause problems, some of which are in cigarette smoke, admittedly.
It is just that other, common sources are often ignored if someone is smoking within smelling distance.
As in the attribution of cancer to cigarette smoking: If you ever smoked, regardless of the other chemicals you were exposed to in your lifetime, and got cancer, guess what gets the blame?
Yep. The cigarettes.
Now how many non-smokers will get cancer from the other chemicals because it was blamed on the cigarettes? That is the disservice of which I speak, one which is being perpetrated on smokers and non-smokers alike.
not hardly - but neither do I live in gay-Portland
And the same with your Christmas Dinner as well. So, it's not just limited to cigarettes.
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.
Well said. Some say that smoking bans do not hurt, but they sure don't help. I know I haven't gone out to a Maine restaurant since they forced the smoking ban. And I was a good tipper. But it's my time and my dime, and I won't spend my money in an reform school atmosphere.
And it's not just the business. It's all the vendors that supply the business. They, too, suffer.
Well, when Big Tobacco fell to their knees in front of the Attorney Generals and passed the Tobacco Settlement, all these Partnerships for a Smoke Free Everything were born from the boards of health.
They scream they want smoke free everything, yet you know darn well they don't. How many people would lose their jobs? Nothing would make me happier to see them back out looking for a job.
The non-smokers do not realize the money that smokers contribute to the state economy! And if everyone stopped smoking, that money would have to be made up from someplace else.
As I have stated, I was a smoker - I realize how hard it is to beat the addiction. I was forced to 'duto' my health. (This allergy that brought on serious illness was not my supposing it was cigarette smoke - I had no clue it was. It was the medical tests that brought it out, loud and clear.)
But there is another side to the economy equation of smoking.
I served in an admin. capacity, many years ago - before any anti-smoking laws were a blip on the radar - with the Berkshire County Lung Association in Mass. - (then they were "TB") and in later years, as a director of the Maine State Lung Association. Another side of the money equation is the health costs that add a great deal to our medical/insurance costs.
AS an aside, I do find it comical that many of the folk who scream about the cost of gas, think nothing of paying five bucks for a cup of la-tee or $7.00 for a pack of cigarettes...
Why do you constantly refer to it as "our addiction?" You are really standing my fur on end here.
It's a habit. And one that most of us choose to have.
Not only that, but there are all kinds of addictions. Lots of people are addicted to running 10 miles every day. Others are addicted to working out in the gyms.
People are addicted to Coke or Pepsi. So, what's your point?
Poor you!
Poor you!
"On the other hand, my NOT smoking does not make anyone uncomfortable nor ill - your logic doesn't hold water"
No, but your grab for the rights of a person to smoke because of your very real allergy does make some uncomfortable. Should I put out the cigarette that I am smoking right now, in my house as I type this to you?
Yes, I am a smoker and I do respect others (funny, I don't like smoke while I am eating but enjoy a smoke after a great dinner). The thing about this is, they are legislating what a person can do in their home. Now, I can't smoke in my residence and I can't go outside to have one. (I'll give you that in this particular case it is a rental and the owner should be allowed to stipulate what occurs in their property).
Let's look at some of the laws that have been passed or suggested. Can't smoke in a car if there are kids in there. I think that a parent should have the sense not to do it but I don't want the govt legislating it. Can't smoke in your home if you hire someone to clean it. Business owners can't choose how they want to run their business. A forced non-smoking bar is about one of the stupidest things I've ever heard of. If a bar owner wants to have one, great! I wish him luck. But, for the govt to say it has to be non-smoking because someone may get ill, dislikes it, whatever is absurd.
The professional anti's are trying to talk the landlords into making their apartments all smoke free. I guess it would be up to the landlord how he would punish someone who was caught smoking in their apartment.
I wasn't trying to "set you straight." I had to leave the computer for a while and I wanted to get my answers in.
But I sure don't need you or anyone telling me that I am addicted.
BTW, what is "your" choice for relaxation? Booze or prescription drugs?
And yes, it IS my life and my money, and if smoking is the only thing I do in this life that is wrong, then I think I have been a pretty good person.
It really is silly. I would be laughing if the anti's weren't so pathetic. I am so sick and tired of their lies I can just scream.
And the head of the WHO just died from brain surgery. This man never smoked, and yet he still died. How are the anti's going to justify this? Oh! I remember:
SECOND HAND SMOKE MUST HAVE KILLED HIM.. aarrrrrrgggghhhhh
Just to think that people are believing the nonsence that I wrote is upsetting. P T Barnum would have a field day with this.
Just to think that people are believing the nonsence that I wrote is upsetting. P T Barnum would have a field day with this.
The anti's have lied and twisted everything beyond belief. Now no one pays much attention to them, although they are still winning at the smoking bans imposed on private businesses. Which I say have got to stop!
I agree.
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