zappaman (5,277 posts)
Moving to Santa Monica, CA? Better Quit Smoking Now!
Smokers: If you're thinking of moving to or within Santa Monica and you plan on renting your new pad, you might want to start stockpiling nicotine patches. Tuesday night, the City Council approved a new law that bans smoking for new tenants in apartments.
Oh, and if you already live in a rented SaMo apartment, you're going to have to "designate their apartments and condominiums smoking or lose the right to light up in their homes at all," according to the Santa Monica Daily Press.
The fact that the Council went with a "more restrictive" ordinance than originally suggested has come as a surprise to many in Santa Monica.
Though the idea is to protect all Santa Monica multi-unit housing dwellers from second hand smoke, some see the ordinance as a way of shaming smokers who opt to declare their current residence "smoking" and have that designation shared with their neighbors. Councilmember Kevin McKeown said making such a designation has a sort of scarlet letter factor: "It is the equivalent to tacking a 'big, yellow S' on a smoker's door," observed McKeown.
http://laist.com/2012/07/11/moving_to_santa_monica_better_quit.php
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002932487So does this boy wonder Zappman Doesn't get it as bad as 'ole Creekdog though.

TheWraith (24,272 posts)
1. Well, that's going to get thrown out by the courts. nt
robinlynne (13,481 posts)
10. I don't think so. it is already against the law to smoke outside in santa monica.
That's freaking nuts!
Fumesucker (25,838 posts)
4. I can see where conservatives get some of their more outlandish ideas about liberals from..
They can see liberals are just as quick as they are to regulate and even ban private behavior, it's really only specifics the two sides disagree on.
Lifelong non smoker here by the way, I tried cigarettes a couple of times when I was a kid and never liked them so I didn't continue.
I wonder if he's a fellow smoker?

Good point.
Response to Fumesucker (Reply #4)
Wed Jul 11, 2012, 06:34 PM
TheWraith (24,272 posts)
14. For once, we agree on something.
I too am a non-smoker, and in fact I find smoking incredibly irritating--it bothers my ability to breathe being near second hand smoke. Even so, I'm not under the fantasy that that somehow entitles me to regulate it and tell somebody they're not allowed to smoke in their own home.
I'd like someone to tell me, what exactly is the difference between banning someone from smoking in their home, and banning them from having gay sex in their home? Other than it being a matter of who finds the behavior morally objectionable? Or for that matter, how about eating unhealthy foods? Is it legal to ban that?
CreekDog (32,177 posts)
16. What if their smoke enters your home?
I assume this also means you're against any restriction on the volume of music one plays in their apartment.
TheWraith (24,272 posts)
18. Please answer my original question.
If it's okay to ban people from smoking in their apartments, what else is it okay to ban them from doing because the majority thinks it harms the "public good"? Can you ban them from having gay sex? Premarital sex? Eating greasy food?
If you have problems with your neighbors, demanding the government pass a law to ban them from doing stuff is not the answer.
CreekDog (32,177 posts)
19. there is no connection between your health and neighbors having sex
or what kind.
that you would even compare those things in this context is troubling.
Almost as troubling as your hypocritical stance on this whole issue.
TheWraith (24,272 posts)
22. Not everybody agrees, and you didn't answer my question.
Nor have you provided any actual evidence that whether your neighbors smoke has any effect on YOUR health, or that this law was sold as such. This is purely a "stop them for their own good!" law, and if you can do that with anything you think is harmful, where exactly is the limit?
CreekDog (32,177 posts)
40. you're saying second hand smoke isn't harmful?
and why can't you burn wood in your fireplace in many cities?
former9thward (4,154 posts)
23. What about the exhaust from your car?
Entering my home. If you don't think exhaust is harmful then get next to the tailpipe and breath deep. But since it is you then your pollution is ok. Right?
CreekDog (32,177 posts)
24. so you are advocating to close your street to traffic?
hmmm.
Holy shit! Mom, is that you? Seriously, get ofg DU!! You'll shame the family! The whole world doesn't need to know you make quantum leaps that no super hero could even dream of. Log off!
former9thward (4,154 posts)
26. I am just pointing out hypocrisy.
hmmm

CreekDog (32,177 posts)
33. are you saying i drive down your street?
do you know me?
also if the pollution from your street is severe enough to cause a problem indoors, are you saying i would oppose dealing with that?
you don't know me at all.
former9thward (4,154 posts)
37. No I don't know you and I'm sure I would not want to.
I don't like people who pick and choose whose lifestyles they want to regulate based on their own lifestyle. You don't smoke so you don't want anyone to smoke. But you drive so you don't care about that pollution. Car pollution is far worse than so-called second hand smoke.
zappaman (5,277 posts)
38. Car pollution is indeed worse than second hand smoke.
http://www.davehitt.com/facts/
This is the stupidest thing I have ever seen. Make a thread that sounds like he's hoo-rahing the decision by Santa Monica, and then post a site showing how the studies of SHS are bullshit. Lol. You can't make it up.
coalition_unwilling (11,143 posts)
45. As a local who has lived in or near Santa Monica for the past 20+ years (and
smoke free for the past two years), I can assure you that many of the Santa Monicans behind this no-smoking ordinance drive the most energy inefficent SUVs on the road. We're talking land yachts, like Escalades, Navigators, Yukons. They have a lot of gall trying to regulate other people's lives while they drive their behemoths two blocks for a half-gallon of milk.
Utter, total hypocrisy.
Douglas Carpenter (13,359 posts)
25. I unfortunately agree - **** that shit- I believe in freedom not tyranny
even liberal tyranny who are only being tyrants for people's own good. I think government should stay out of people's bedrooms or living rooms for that matter.
CreekDog (32,179 posts)
34. what about rules against burning wood in fireplaces? there are those rules you know
they are designed to protect people on days with heavy pollution.
do you oppose those?
zappaman (5,277 posts)
5. I'm wondering how it affects medical marijuana users...
Can you ban someone for doing something that's legally prescribed?
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Don't take away the pot! I NEED it!!!!!11!1
Fly in the ointment, huh?
Liberal_in_LA (24,473 posts)
17. I don't smoke but I feel sorry for smokers. Their rights are being challenged at every opportunity
CreekDog (32,179 posts)
21. what about an asthmatic who lives near a neighbor who smokes?
or a neighbor who has a guest that smokes?
who has the right to breathe? should the asthmatic stop breathing until they can move into another apartment?
REP (15,034 posts)
27. I'm asthmatic; it's woodsmoke that triggers bad attacks in me
Theres no ****ing escape from the smoke from all those ****ing fireplaces in the fall and winter. It's nearly unbearable. Yet I deal with it.
I don't expect everybody to accommodate me.

And that's where I'll end this OP.