THE RIGHT TO HAVE EQUAL ACCESS TO HOUSING AND OTHER ACCOMMODATIONS

The Fort Pierce (FL) Housing Authority has recently banned smoking in private apartments in all public housing in St. Lucie County. ¹ A bill (S-580) before the Massachusetts State Senate would require, if passed, that 75% of all units of public housing be reserved for nonsmokers...Apartment hunters have noted an increasing number of rental ads for "nonsmokers only."...Tenants have been sued for smoking in their own co-op apartments ² and a smoking store-owner hounded from her store. ³ Then too we have ASH, led by Ashist John Banzaf, whose newsletter urges any like-minded zealots to use every means at hand (including blackmail and lawsuits) to help evict smokers, or prevent them from buying co-ops and condos, or to otherwise debar them from enjoying a cigarette at the hearths of their own homes. ⁴

HOTELS have become a problem. There's the famous case of the Dauts--turned out of a Best Western at 4 o'clock in the morning. The manager, observing Mr. Daut's cigarette pack, refused to rent him a room; wouldn't even rent a room to his nonsmoking wife and their nonsmoking infants. Why? Because their clothing might exude the smell of smoke. ⁵

HOSPITALS, NURSING HOMES AND VETERANS FACILITIES are putting up the "Smoke-Free Environment" sign. What they're offering is cruel and unusual punishment for the elderly, the sick and the people who, ironically, fought for a free land. The result is that many who are badly in need of help are refusing to enter these Dickensian establishments ⁶ and others have to exit them 11 times a day, attached to intravenous poles. ⁷

(1) Fort Pierce, St. Petersburg Times, 2/10/96, Pt. St. Lucie News 3/22/96.
(2) Philadelphia Daily News, 4/28/94; Daily Record (Morris County, NJ) 5/2/94, 10/28/94; New York Times 5/13/94. Other cases exist.
(3) McClatchy News Service syndicate 11/18(?)/95.
(4) "Smoking Problems in Condominiums & Apartment Buildings" undated newsletter form Action on Smoking & Health (ASH), 2013 H. St NW, Washington, DC 20006; NY Times 10/31/95.
(5)Best Western, Wall St. Journal, 12/8/94.
(6) "Hospital Smoking Bans Are New Anxiety for Mentally Ill", NY Times 2/19/95.
(7) Pass any hospital--even in Alaska. Item: USA Today, 9/26/95: "Kotzebue, Alaska--The Maniilaq Health Center has built three unheated shacks outside the hospital so smokers don't get frostbite in the minus 40-degree winters." (Presumably, they only get double-pneumonia.)