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.
It's NOT your room.
Ebola patients welcome
Jeez it amazing how all these smokers are old coots.
How is this different that being LGBT?
When the government controls your food they control your life.
Stop sucking on the government teat, get a job (or two or three, whatever it takes), move out of government housing and live your life the way you please.
What about little old ladies who smoke medicinal marijuana for their chronic pain conditions? YOU HATE THEM TOO?
These are old folks on subsidy.
Meanwhile in section 8, all the brothers are smoking pot and drinking 40’s.
I was going to say that. And I'm a smoker.
Old coots with COPD
Bull sh!t. Since I quit last January I've gained more than 30 lbs.
When you live in your parent house, your parents make the rules. When you accept the gubbmint as your momma,your momma makes the rules.
“I pay $400 a month, and then they tell you what you can’t do in your room.”
1) Bingo.
2) How much is this guy burning up per month if he’s so addicted that he has to bundle up multiple times per day to survive sub-freezing temperatures to satisfy his habit? A pack a day? Two hundred bucks a month?
I ballooned to over 200 lbs when I quit smoking. I got breathless just tying my damned shoes.
I was grouchy as hell and my free floating anxiety was off the charts.
I started smoking again, lost the weight and feel so much better now.
My joints no longer ache just walking across the room.
Can the 40 oz. soda ban be far behind?
Do parents regularly change the house rules?
How nice an apartment could he afford if he wasn’t spending thousands of dollars on cigarettes?
The taxpayers are picking up much of the cost of his “room” and he complains about the rules.
You realize that virtually all of the cost of tobacco is TAX.
He is complaining that the CHANGED the rules.
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