Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

No smoking in your own home, California city orders residents

thetimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 27 posts

Re: No smoking in your own home, California city orders residents

#11

Post by themaninthedark »

rafram wrote: post #5

Clickbait, because the law only applies "inside apartments, condos and other shared buildings where multiple families live." This law already exists in many cities and should exist everywhere. It's one thing to smoke in your own detached house, but when you share walls with others, smoking becomes harmful to others' health, too, not just your own. My downstairs neighbor smokes heavily and burns incense all day and ni…

How is it clickbait? Individuals can own a unit in a condo or apartment building.

>My downstairs neighbor smokes heavily and burns incense all day and night, and it's bad enough that I'm seriously considering moving. Sometimes I can see smoke visibly rising from the floor. This would not be a problem if the city I lived in had common-sense laws against smoking inside multi-unit buildings.

That sucks, I wonder if your building is up to code?

As someone who dislikes the smell of smokers, I like the idea of the law but I worry about allowing the reach.

Re: No smoking in your own home, California city orders residents

#13

Post by kstrauser »

ctoth wrote: post #8

Wouldn't the obvious solution be to make the apartments airtight, so as to avoid everything from smoke to cooking smells to whatever bothering your neighbors? Isn't second-hand (passive smoking) shown to not increase cancer[0]? Really trying to understand this "we don't like something so we will ban it for everyone!" thing. Isn't your home supposed to be sacred? Sovereign? Aren't the YIMBY people always telling me th…

That article reads a lot like a press release. It also includes things like:

> The only category of exposure that showed a trend toward increased risk was living in the same house with a smoker for 30 years or more. In that group, the hazard ratio for developing lung cancer was 1.61, but the confidence interval included 1.00, making the finding of only borderline statistical significance.

"Well, it could cause a 61% increase in cancer cases, but our error bars are so wide that there's really no way of knowing, so it's probably fine."

Re: No smoking in your own home, California city orders residents

#14

Post by timeon »

themaninthedark wrote: post #11
rafram wrote: post #5

Clickbait, because the law only applies "inside apartments, condos and other shared buildings where multiple families live." This law already exists in many cities and should exist everywhere. It's one thing to smoke in your own detached house, but when you share walls with others, smoking becomes harmful to others' health, too, not just your own. My downstairs neighbor smokes heavily and burns incense all day and ni…

How is it clickbait? Individuals can own a unit in a condo or apartment building. >My downstairs neighbor smokes heavily and burns incense all day and night, and it's bad enough that I'm seriously considering moving. Sometimes I can see smoke visibly rising from the floor. This would not be a problem if the city I lived in had common-sense laws against smoking inside multi-unit buildings. That sucks, I wonder if your…

> if your building is up to code?

Aren't you worried about the reach of code as well?

Re: No smoking in your own home, California city orders residents

#15

Post by rafram »

ctoth wrote: post #8

Wouldn't the obvious solution be to make the apartments airtight, so as to avoid everything from smoke to cooking smells to whatever bothering your neighbors? Isn't second-hand (passive smoking) shown to not increase cancer[0]? Really trying to understand this "we don't like something so we will ban it for everyone!" thing. Isn't your home supposed to be sacred? Sovereign? Aren't the YIMBY people always telling me th…

Making apartments airtight has other serious disadvantages: CO2 builds up and literally makes you worse at thinking; diseases spread more easily; air quality plummets due to VOCs. Humans need fresh air.

And it's not as easy to make an actually impermeable apartment as you'd think it is. Pretty much every material we build with allows some amount of air and particles to pass through.

> Isn't second-hand (passive smoking) shown to not increase cancer[0]?

That study takes one position on secondhand smoke and lung cancer, but lots of other studies have found that it does cause serious health problems, including but not limited to lung cancer: https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/secondhand-smoke/health.html

Re: No smoking in your own home, California city orders residents

#16

Post by beaglesss »

ctoth wrote: post #8

Wouldn't the obvious solution be to make the apartments airtight, so as to avoid everything from smoke to cooking smells to whatever bothering your neighbors? Isn't second-hand (passive smoking) shown to not increase cancer[0]? Really trying to understand this "we don't like something so we will ban it for everyone!" thing. Isn't your home supposed to be sacred? Sovereign? Aren't the YIMBY people always telling me th…

The obvious solution is to let people pick if they want to rent/buy in a smoking complex.

Presumably if this is so popular it has democratic assent, it would create a market advantage and through the free market most everyone gets what they want.

It appears what's happened is some people picked apartment complexes with no contract banning smoking, then had a sad face about their choice.

Re: No smoking in your own home, California city orders residents

#17

Post by kstrauser »

timeon wrote: post #14
themaninthedark wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it clickbait? Individuals can own a unit in a condo or apartment building. >My downstairs neighbor smokes heavily and burns incense all day and night, and it's bad enough that I'm seriously considering moving. Sometimes I can see smoke visibly rising from the floor. This would not be a problem if the city I lived in had common-sense laws against smoking inside multi-unit buildings. That sucks, I wonder if your…

> if your building is up to code? Aren't you worried about the reach of code as well?

No? I'm sure some code is unnecessary, but I like living in a house not prone to killing me.

Re: No smoking in your own home, California city orders residents

#18

Post by blargey »

ctoth wrote: post #8

Wouldn't the obvious solution be to make the apartments airtight, so as to avoid everything from smoke to cooking smells to whatever bothering your neighbors? Isn't second-hand (passive smoking) shown to not increase cancer[0]? Really trying to understand this "we don't like something so we will ban it for everyone!" thing. Isn't your home supposed to be sacred? Sovereign? Aren't the YIMBY people always telling me th…

I would assume the cost of making all existing apartments that well insulated (and actively ventilated to compensate), not just from the outside but from each other, is prohibitive. Raising standards for new construction sounds nice from a QoL and energy efficiency standpoint, but I’m not sure if the upfront costs or technical feasibility are there.

And from your link - “Passive smoking has many downstream health effects—asthma, upper respiratory infections, other pulmonary diseases, cardiovascular disease—but only borderline increased risk of lung cancer”. I think that’s still more than enough to make one person’s smoke their (wall-sharing) neighbor’s business.

Re: No smoking in your own home, California city orders residents

#19

Post by puppycodes »

beaglesss wrote: post #16
ctoth wrote: post #8

Wouldn't the obvious solution be to make the apartments airtight, so as to avoid everything from smoke to cooking smells to whatever bothering your neighbors? Isn't second-hand (passive smoking) shown to not increase cancer[0]? Really trying to understand this "we don't like something so we will ban it for everyone!" thing. Isn't your home supposed to be sacred? Sovereign? Aren't the YIMBY people always telling me th…

The obvious solution is to let people pick if they want to rent/buy in a smoking complex. Presumably if this is so popular it has democratic assent, it would create a market advantage and through the free market most everyone gets what they want. It appears what's happened is some people picked apartment complexes with no contract banning smoking, then had a sad face about their choice.

Ah yes, the invisible cigarette

Re: No smoking in your own home, California city orders residents

#20

Post by rafram »

themaninthedark wrote: post #11
rafram wrote: post #5

Clickbait, because the law only applies "inside apartments, condos and other shared buildings where multiple families live." This law already exists in many cities and should exist everywhere. It's one thing to smoke in your own detached house, but when you share walls with others, smoking becomes harmful to others' health, too, not just your own. My downstairs neighbor smokes heavily and burns incense all day and ni…

How is it clickbait? Individuals can own a unit in a condo or apartment building. >My downstairs neighbor smokes heavily and burns incense all day and night, and it's bad enough that I'm seriously considering moving. Sometimes I can see smoke visibly rising from the floor. This would not be a problem if the city I lived in had common-sense laws against smoking inside multi-unit buildings. That sucks, I wonder if your…

> How is it clickbait?

Because you can still smoke "in your own home." You can't subject your neighbors to smoke in a multi-unit building.

> I wonder if your building is up to code?

Certainly, as of the 1920s, when it was built. I don't think that new buildings (at least those built with fire-resistant wood frames, which is the current trend) are really better at preventing smells from moving between units anyway.

Post reply on HN