By C. J. HUGHES for the New York Times
Hello students! With new anti-smoking legislation imminent in Spain, I thought this article would be appropriate. Please read and add your comments below, answering the following questions:
- Do you share the opinions of Bryan Marx, or do you agree more with Dale Smith, and why?
- Do you sympathize with Brian Massotti, or do you think he is better off now and will be grateful in the long run?
- Do you feel anti-smoking legislation is necessary because otherwise smokers will always abuse the rights of non-smokers, or do you think the opposite is true?
The movement to ban smoking in New York City has grown so quickly that no place seems immune — certainly not restaurants or bars, and public beaches and parks may not be far behind. Now the efforts are rapidly expanding into the living room.
More landlords are moving to prohibit smoking in their apartment buildings, telling prospective tenants they can be evicted if they light up in them. This month, the Related Companies will ban smoking at some of its downtown apartment buildings because of health concerns about secondhand smoke, according to company officials.
Smokers who already live in any of these buildings will not be affected, according to Jeff Brodsky, a president of Related, which is a national developer with 17 buildings in Manhattan.
But any new renters must promise not to smoke at home, even if they continue to elsewhere.
Kenbar Management, a local developer, is going a step further. When its new project, 1510 Lexington Avenue, opens in December, smoking will be banned in all 298 units, in addition to private and shared terraces.
And the typical smoker’s refuge — directly outside the building — is also off limits; tenants must agree not to smoke on any of the sidewalks that wrap around the building, which takes up most of a block in East Harlem, according to Kinne Yon, a Kenbar principal.
The trend has predictably divided smokers and nonsmokers in New York. “I think it’s absolutely absurd,” said Bryan Marx, 53, a cabinetmaker who has lived at Tribeca Park, a Related building on Chambers Street, since 1999. He smokes hand-rolled cigarettes in his apartment, but said that he cut back on a cigar habit a few years ago to appease a neighbor.
Opinions among NYC residents are divided. “How about a little tolerance?” Mr. Marx added. “Smokers have become the whipping boys for everything that’s unhealthy about living in New York City.”
“I think it’s a bloody good thing,” said Dale Smith, 41, a Broadway producer who formerly worked in the health care industry. A resident of Tribeca Green for nearly three years, Mr. Smith, who does not smoke, said he had complained to his landlord about secondhand smoke in his apartment.
Yet some smokers seemed resigned to their fate. Brian Mossotti, 28, a day trader, moved into the Pan Am-run building on 23rd Street 14 months ago, after the developer’s ban had taken effect. After receiving three warnings from management about fumes in the hallway, including a stern letter in September, Mr. Mossotti finally agreed to take his two-a-day cigarette habit to the sidewalk, he said. “You can’t smoke in bars because of the whole secondhand smoke thing, so it doesn’t surprise me,” he said. “But it is irritating.”
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