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Tobacco cops push no-smoking policies for all local apartments

Algoma Public Health directors voted Wednesday night to ask all landlords and owners of multi-unit housing to voluntarily make their rental properties smoke-free.

Algoma Public Health directors voted Wednesday night to ask all landlords and owners of multi-unit housing to voluntarily make their rental properties smoke-free.

The motion was passed without comment from health board members, but a briefing paper prepared by interim Chief Executive Officer Tony Hanlon pointed out that 31 percent of northeast Ontario residents who live in multi-unit housing say that tobacco smoke has entered their homes in the past six months.

"Exposure can occur from a neighbour's patio/ balcony, or from outdoor common areas, through open windows or doors, electrical outlets, cable or phone jacks, or ceiling fixtures, cracks and gaps around sinks, countertops, windows, doors, floors, walls or dropped ceilings and through the ventilation or forced-air system," Hanlon said.

Second-hand smoke takes the lives of 1,000 Canadians each year and 80 percent of Ontarians living in multi-unit housing say they would prefer a smoke-free building if given the choice, the CEO said.

APH directors also recommended that all future private-sector rental properties in Ontario be smoke-free from the beginning.

This should also apply to new public/ social housing developments, they argued.

Both Sault Ste. Marie Housing Corp. and the Ontario Finnish Resthome Association have previously introduced policies that allowed existing tenants to continue smoking, but new tenants were required to sign smoke-free leases,

A 1.73 percent increase in spending on tobacco control was one of a very small number of increases allowed in APH's 2016 operating and capital budget, which was approved last night.

(IMAGE: "Smoking isn't just suicide. It's murder" advertisement created for Corporación Nacional del Cáncer Chile by ad agency DRAFT FCB + IDB, to emphasize the dangers of second-hand smoke.)

 


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David Helwig

About the Author: David Helwig

David Helwig's journalism career spans seven decades beginning in the 1960s. His work has been recognized with national and international awards.
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