Real estate companies making it tougher for smokers in their homes
Real estate companies making it tougher for smokers in their homes
BY XANA O'NEILL AND JORDAN LITE
DAILY NEWS WRITERS
They banned smoking in the bars and restaurants - and now they're coming into New Yorkers' homes.
City real estate companies are jumping on the anti-tobacco bandwagon with new policies that prohibit tenants from lighting up behind their own doors.
It's the latest anti-smoking trend to hit the city since Mayor Bloomberg banned lighting up in bars and restaurants five years ago Sunday.
Clare Walsh just moved into a loft rental at 270 Park Ave. South. Its owner, Pan Am Equities, doesn't allow smoking anywhere in its buildings - including inside the apartments of tenants with new leases.
"It has my full support," said Walsh, 52. "Smoking is a particularly unhealthy, unattractive activity."
City health officials do not have specific data on how many residential buildings have official smoking bans, but real estate experts say a national movement has sprung up around creating smoke-free homes.
"We're going with the times, with the city doing the bans with bars," said David Iwanier, Pan Am Equities' vice president. "We are considerate of everybody's needs, as well as [the need to] to compete with the marketplace."
Manhattan real estate manager Jeff Lamb said most of the roughly 30 co-ops and condos he handles have banned smoking or are in the process of adopting no-smoking house rules.
That means the co-op boards can deny new applicants if they're smokers, or require existing owners who smoke to ventilate their apartments or plug holes to protect their neighbors.
The trend began shortly after a Manhattan Civil Court judge ruled in 2006 that secondhand smoke exposure violates residents' warrant of habitability, Lamb said.
The same year, the U.S. surgeon general reported on health effects from secondhand smoke.
"I would think it's going to become more commonplace," said Lamb, president of J&C Lamb Management.
Still, he said, "In one case, the smoking person, being sensitive to these new guidelines, decided to sell her apartment."
Neither federal nor state laws prevent residential buildings from adopting smoke-free policies, said Jim Bergman of the Smoke-Free Environments Law Project.
Audrey Silk, founder of the smokers' rights group NYC Clash, calls the emerging residential policies just the latest in an "incremental attack."
"First, it was planes for two hours, then six hours, then all planes; then half of restaurants, then all restaurants," Silk said. "Now, the home."
On a smaller scale, individual New Yorkers are making their homes smoke-free. Some 75% of New Yorkers say they have no-smoking rules in their homes, up from 65% in 2006, according to a poll conducted by Zogby International for the NYC Coalition for a Smoke-Free City.
http://www.nydailynews.com
BY XANA O'NEILL AND JORDAN LITE
DAILY NEWS WRITERS
They banned smoking in the bars and restaurants - and now they're coming into New Yorkers' homes.
City real estate companies are jumping on the anti-tobacco bandwagon with new policies that prohibit tenants from lighting up behind their own doors.
It's the latest anti-smoking trend to hit the city since Mayor Bloomberg banned lighting up in bars and restaurants five years ago Sunday.
Clare Walsh just moved into a loft rental at 270 Park Ave. South. Its owner, Pan Am Equities, doesn't allow smoking anywhere in its buildings - including inside the apartments of tenants with new leases.
"It has my full support," said Walsh, 52. "Smoking is a particularly unhealthy, unattractive activity."
City health officials do not have specific data on how many residential buildings have official smoking bans, but real estate experts say a national movement has sprung up around creating smoke-free homes.
"We're going with the times, with the city doing the bans with bars," said David Iwanier, Pan Am Equities' vice president. "We are considerate of everybody's needs, as well as [the need to] to compete with the marketplace."
Manhattan real estate manager Jeff Lamb said most of the roughly 30 co-ops and condos he handles have banned smoking or are in the process of adopting no-smoking house rules.
That means the co-op boards can deny new applicants if they're smokers, or require existing owners who smoke to ventilate their apartments or plug holes to protect their neighbors.
The trend began shortly after a Manhattan Civil Court judge ruled in 2006 that secondhand smoke exposure violates residents' warrant of habitability, Lamb said.
The same year, the U.S. surgeon general reported on health effects from secondhand smoke.
"I would think it's going to become more commonplace," said Lamb, president of J&C Lamb Management.
Still, he said, "In one case, the smoking person, being sensitive to these new guidelines, decided to sell her apartment."
Neither federal nor state laws prevent residential buildings from adopting smoke-free policies, said Jim Bergman of the Smoke-Free Environments Law Project.
Audrey Silk, founder of the smokers' rights group NYC Clash, calls the emerging residential policies just the latest in an "incremental attack."
"First, it was planes for two hours, then six hours, then all planes; then half of restaurants, then all restaurants," Silk said. "Now, the home."
On a smaller scale, individual New Yorkers are making their homes smoke-free. Some 75% of New Yorkers say they have no-smoking rules in their homes, up from 65% in 2006, according to a poll conducted by Zogby International for the NYC Coalition for a Smoke-Free City.
http://www.nydailynews.com
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