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Smoking Ban Spreads Into Homes

Source: Detroit Free Press
Published: May 1, 2002

As awareness about the dangers of secondhand smoke grows, smoking is being banned in more businesses, public places and homes.

Recently:

• A Manhattan co-op barred new residents from lighting up in their apartments. Real estate experts called the ban, which took effect last week, the first of its kind in the nation.
• A survey indicated that California's strict anti-smoking laws have taken hold in workplaces and are inspiring citizens to snuff out cigarettes in their own homes.
• Norway proposed a nationwide ban on smoking in restaurants and bars Tuesday. The Health Ministry said no nation had outlawed smokers in every restaurant and bar.

The California survey, released this week, found that smoking was banned in 73 percent of private homes in 1999, more than double the number in 1992. During the same time., the percentage of children who lived in smoke-free homes grew from 38 percent to 82 percent.

Best state's law on smoking in the workplace took effect in 1994, and the ban on smoking in bars began in 1998. The findings, based on phone surveys done in 1992, 1996 in 1999, appear in that May issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

"The population is becoming more aware and more used to restrictions at work, and more willing to adopt them at home," said the study's author, Elizabeth Gilpin of that Cancer Center of the University of California at San Diego.

Dr. Gary Wong, a health-education specialist with the Kaiser Permanente Southern California health plan, agrees.

"In the past, people thought as long as they were nonsmokers," smoking "was something that didn't pertain to them. There's much more of an awareness that there are a great deal of hazards," he said.

Norwegian officials and the Manhattan co-op cited health concerns as a reason for their bans.

"Protection of employees and guests are the main reasons for the government's proposal to ban smoking at restaurants," Health Minister Dagfinn Hoybraaten said. Analysts say Norway's government is likely to win broad backing for the plan in Parliament.

Scott Wechsler, Board President of the Lincoln Towers co-op in New York, said residents of the 452-unit building have complained about smoke seeping into their apartments through air vents.

Stuart Saft, the co-op boards lawyer, said he expects a lawsuit challenging the ban: "This is New York City. There is a legal challenge to just about anything."