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.
I would like to get peoples ideas on what can be done to put an end to the bans. We seem to do enough complaining about them (myself included), but where is the action? We can say "vote the rascals out", but here in New Jersey, you are only voting one corrupt politician out of office in favor of another who is probably as bad or worse.
Forgot to mention, although I realize most everyone knows, the casinos have an exemption from the smoking ban. The politicians can't even apply the law equally.
It isn't clear if they plan to do this by attrition or by eviction.
Why don't you go ahead and light up and get it out of your system?
If I wasn't so settled in, I would move out of this damn blue state.
Well, I don't think the smoking ban in Maine can be over turned now. Not sure how that would work.
Other states where the anti's are pushing for bans are finding opposition finally. Business owners have heard what the bans did to other businesses in other states and they aren't ready to lose all. So, finally, the anti's are finally coming up against fighters.
That's when most people woke up. It's not about health after all. When it's money for the state, the anti's leave it alone. But the poor bars and taverns had to go smoke free.
So, if the casino's are allowed smoking, and employees are still working there, does that mean the anti's don't care about the health of the workers, just as long as the state continues to receive money?
They make me sick!
This is the purpose of cleaning.
Stephen King was the state's largest contributor to the Clinton Defense Fund.
Had a big honking Kerry/Edwards sign on his front lawn last election.
He's a total nutball lefty.
I don't know if you are a smoker or not, but I can assure you that "clean" or "smoke-smell-free" have different definitions for smokers and non-smokers. It isn't even a close call.
A freshly cleaned and painted apartment does not smell like smoke.
I've rented apartments to non-smokers after smokers moved out with nary a complaint or neurotic nose-scrunching.
Maybe I've just been lucky enough to get normal people applying for the rentals.
Sicker than the second hand smoke they complain about.
"Stephen King was the state's largest contributor to the Clinton Defense Fund.
Had a big honking Kerry/Edwards sign on his front lawn last election.
He's a total nutball lefty."
I thought he was a screwball.
I'm sure he was also spouting off about a "don't spend a dime day", or some related crap.
I read many of his books, over a twenty-some year period, and was a "constant reader", as he likes to say.
After his little "don't spend a dime day", I decided it was a good idea. He hasn't recieved another dime from me.
I served in an admin. capacity, many years ago - 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.
Did the the Maine State Lung Association provide you with a secretary?
Kewl, smokers will then just smoke on the back porch and let the smoke trail up to everyone else's apartments.
LOL! Yes I remember that.
I live right around the corner from him, and while he was exhorting everyone else not to "spend a dime," he was having a million (at least) dollar renovation going full bore in the house he bought next door.
Workmen swarming all over the place on "don't spend a dime" day.
FYI ping
Sure love living in a nanny state...
*sigh*
Ms.B
sorry to disappoint -
my choices are deep, warm baths, a good book, sitting in my Adirondack watching the gold finch and hummingbirds, fishing, a walk in the woods, fiddleheading - gosh, the list goes on.
I must admit, tho' I do take melatonin before going to bed. But it's not prescription, so I guess that still doesn't count. Ah me...
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