Fourth in a series
Re “Weissman Explains Why It Was Necessary for City Hall to Intervene”
[img]1305|right|Andy Weissman||no_popup[/img]When the City Council debates the previously thorny topic of prohibiting smoking in multi-unit buildings at this evening’s 7 o’clock meeting, scarcely a murmur of resistance is anticipated.
Why?
Councilman Andy Weissman did not phrase the motivation as being saving the public from itself, that was his message.
If “landlords were to prohibit smoking entirely, which some have,” said Mr. Weissman, “perhaps there would not be the need for government to have to act.”
He called the expected unanimous endorsement “a step to insure public health,” a broad and amorphous perceived obligation. “I agree this is not exactly science,” Mr. Weissman said. “This is not objective. Two people who agree on everything may disagree on this.”
The Meadows complex, Fox Hills, has 600 units and is the largest affected property.
Is banning smoking in private homes the next step for the City Council?
“I wouldn’t think so,” said Mr. Weissman. “I could not justify that. I make a distinction in dwellings where walls are shared, ventilation is shared. This is not the case with single-family homes.”
Is affecting strangers different from affecting persons who live with you?
“I would not ban smoking in a detached single-family residence.”
What is the distinction?
“You are not affecting people the same way. You are not sharing walls, you are not sharing electrical outlets.”
So the distinction is methodology, not the number of people affected, because if six persons live in your home, you are affecting more people than may live in an apartment?
“It is a matter of where you apply it,” Mr. Weissman said. “The point is correct that by prohibiting smoking in an apartment building where only one person may be living as opposed to a single-family home with three or more people.”
