Public Comment

The group of citizens who beseeched the Ad Hoc Committee on Smokefree Housing to protect their health walked away thinking that smokefree housing was getting closer, perhaps requiring only another year watching their families choke on secondhand smoke before finally being able to breath smokefree air.

They were wrong.

The preliminary memo from the Public Health Department, the committee chair confirms, embraces grandfathering smokers – leaving smokers in place – out of the same mythological fear of eviction which shipwrecked smokefree housing efforts five years ago. 

It only takes one smoker to create toxic air in an entire apartment or condominium building, so “grandfathering” clauses obviate the entire point of smokefree laws, since healthy, smokefree air is the goal, and there is no safe dose of secondhand smoke. 

Come, if you can, to the Ad Hoc Committee on Smokefree Housing this Friday, January 18th, 10:00 am, on the 2nd Floor of 2001 Center Street. Watch your very own Health Department professionals slide backwards in time to the applause of the tobacco industry!