Berkeley's next smoking ban may hit home

[Jesus Malverde]

Berkeley, where residents take pride in exercising their personal freedoms and resisting government intrusion, is the site these days of a much different kind of movement - one to ban cigarette smoking from single-family homes.

A City Council member says a proposal to ban cigarette smoking in apartments and condos, where smoke can waft through ventilation systems, is not tough enough or fair. Councilman Jesse Arreguin says his fellow council members should consider expanding the proposed ban to include single-family homes where children, seniors or lodgers are present.

Cigarette smoking is already prohibited in Berkeley's commercial districts, parks and bus stops, and within 25 feet of any building open to the public, and the council plans to extend the ban to all apartments, condominiums and other multiunit buildings where secondhand smoke can spread.

But if Berkeley is really serious about protecting nonsmokers, it should ban smoking in the specified single-family homes as well, Arreguin argues in a proposal to toughen the proposed law.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Berkeley-s-next-smoking-ban-may-hit-home-4984302.php

[enlightenment]

1. So, if it's a senior that smokes

in their single-family home, are they the victim or the perp?

[Politicalboi]

2. Such bullshit

They have NO right to tell you what you can and can't do behind your own door. I would tell them to fuck off as I was blowing smoke at them. And in the meantime, Fukushima is poisoning our ocean. Perhaps the city council should check our food by eating it first.

[Bennyboy]

3. Yet at the Greek Theater

People smoke like there is no tomorrow. I've been to hundreds of shows there and it is the smokers open house. I've even got in some very heated discussions with people over that. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people smoking cigarettes at one time.....Not sure how to deal with that though and the cops don't either without also going after pot smokers at the same time (which would make a bad scene I think at a concert in Berkeley). What is funny is that these people also vaporize cannabis but don't do it with tobacco. I got no truck at all with that.



I don't know about single family unattached homes, that might be going a bit too far. I can see the public bans and the tight housing situations but in your own home? Nah.

but here is the real question. I am guessing that more people smoke cannabis in Berkeley than smoke cigarettes. Will that too have to go through a banning process as well? Or by then will we all have vaporizers and won't have to worry about that?

[Jesus Malverde]

4. nope

While Berkeley's proposal is among the toughest in the nation, it's lenient in at least one regard: It does not include marijuana or e-cigarettes. Those would be permitted anywhere.

[Ranchemp.]

5. I predict that this won't survive a court challenge.

The other venues I can see, but not a private home.

[Jesus Malverde]

6. The law seems to stand for multi-dwelling units.

This just extends it to multi-occupied single units. It's likely to stand the way things go...

[Capt. Obvious]

7. Why stop there?

Cars with more than one seat have the potential to harm passengers.

[Luminous Animal]

8. Looking forward to the day when cities and towns start banning

motor vehicles and industry.

Air Pollution: Warming temperatures worsen smog pollution, which triggers asthma attacks and permanently damages and reduces the function of children’s lungs. Higher smog levels even contribute to premature deaths.

http://www.nrdc.org/air/carbon-emissions/

One chapter of the document is particularly interesting to me as a pediatrician: the impacts of climate change on human health.

....

Asthma and allergic rhinitis are two of the leading causes of pediatric chronic disease in America. Asthma affected 7.1 million American children in 2011, a rate of almost one in ten. It's the leading cause of school absenteeism and pediatric hospitalization. Allergic rhinitis is similarly common, affecting 10% of U.S. children.

http://action.sierraclub.org/site/PageServer?pagename=novaclimatechange