Smoking law will help apartment dwellers

In his letter to The Acorn Jan. 31, Michael Siegel asserted that the new smoking regulations recently passed in the city of Calabasas would make life more difficult for the residents in apartments.

He could not be more wrong. The city of Calabasas has three apartment complexes, each one consisting of as many as 50 buildings, each building consisting of as many as 16 units. In 2006, the City Council passed an ordinance requiring no smoking in common areas of these apartment complexes, thus forcing tenants back into their apartments to smoke around their loved ones.

In 2007, partly because of the work of our organization, the City Council took a closer look at the problem of drifting tobacco smoke in apartments. We conducted door-to-door surveys of Calabasas apartment residents. Thirty-six percent said they had secondhand smoke drift into their home in the previous year. Seventy-nine percent said they would prefer to live in a completely nonsmoking building, including balconies and patios.

The new ordinance will require 80 percent of the buildings to become non-smoking over time. Current residents who smoke will be permitted to continue smoking in their units until they move. In addition, areas for smoking outside will be designated. Management is required to inform prospective tenants where the smoking-permitted buildings and outdoor areas are located. Thus, for the first time ever, apartment residents will have the choice of living in a nonsmoking environment.

According to the California Department of Public Health, very few adults in California are still smoking (13 percent) and most of them want to quit. We found that onethird of the apartment residents who smoke responded in our survey that they preferred to live in a nonsmoking unit.

Both non-smokers and folks who smoke will benefit from the Calabasas Housing Ordinance. Once again, Michael Siegel is wrong. Esther Schiller Executive Director SAFE (Smokefree Air For Everyone), Granada Hills