Los Angeles City Council To Hold Hearing Next Month on Partial Smoking Ban in Subsidized Housing
The Los Angeles City Council yesterday said that it will schedule a hearing next month to examine a proposal by a group of health advocates to ban smoking in half of the city's new subsidized apartment buildings, the Los Angeles Times reports. Under the proposal by the Task Force for Smoke Free Housing and other organizations, the city would award housing trust funds to affordable apartment projects with the requirement that there be an equal number of units that allow smoking and that would be smoke-free. The city is currently launching an effort to provide $100 million annually to subsidize the construction of affordable housing. "A person who smokes can live in the building," Esther Schiller, executive director of Smokefree Air For Everyone, said, adding, "It's just that they don't smoke in the building, in the same way we have smokers who eat in our restaurants." According to Marisol Romero, executive director of the Hispanic/Latino Tobacco Education Network, the city already prohibits certain substances, such as lead-based paint, in housing units. According to Schiller, approximately 60,000 people in the United States die from the effects of secondhand smoke each year (McGreevy, Los Angeles Times, 1/9).
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