At 5:30 on the morning of October 28, 2011 our Brattleboro Fire Department responded to a fire alarm in the Elliot Apartments complex on Elliot Street. A 76 year old cigarette smoker had ignited a fire that killed her, injured and hospitalized two others, temporarily displaced 55 tenants for the day, caused extensive burn damage in one apartment, created serious water damage in apartments below and caused costly and time-consuming repair damage.
All of that just because of one careless cigarette smoker…
An estimated 7,600 smoking-related fires in residential buildings occur each year in the United States. Each and every year cigarette smoking-related fires are a leading cause of residential fire deaths.
Typically, victims of cigarette smoking fires were not involved in starting the fire itself. Each year smoking fires cause the highest fatality and injury rates for residential fires. “In 2002 alone, lighted tobacco products caused an estimated 14,450 residential fires, 520 deaths, 1,330 injuries, and $371 million in residential property damage.”
In the United States alone, it is estimated that cigarette smoking causes 480,000 health-related deaths each year::
440,000 cigarette smokers die from cigarette smoking each year.
40,000 people exposed to secondhand cigarette smoke die each year.
Additionally, millions of people suffer from cigarette smoker’s health-related illnesses each and every year.
It’s no wonder why cigarette-smokers
are considered one of the most deadly
and destructive forces known to man.
A pack-a-day smoker smokes an estimated 7,300 cigarettes each year. In 2013, a pack of cigarettes in New York cost $14.50, in Vermont $9.62 and in Kentucky $4.96.
With the recent merger of R.J. Reynolds and Lorillard, cigarette brands Camel and Newport consolidate the top brands young people buy most often. The cigarette industry’s primary business model is termed “Replacement Smokers” – a program to continually replace the lost income from the 480,000 cigarette smokers who die each year. In the United States, roughly 2,100 young smokers a day join the ranks of people who are daily smokers.
Cigarette smokers, of all ages, are a significant part of the primary causes of addiction, illness, death, health costs, cost of property damage and loss, and, ground and air pollution.
And, just because they suffer an addiction far worse than heroin and opiate addictions, these are not innocent people. Their victims usually are. The story that begins this article illustrates that one careless smoker caused serious collateral damage, injury, expense and harm within just a few minutes. There’s nothing innocent about that.
Cigarette smokers are just as guilty as the business conglomerates that provide them with their drug of choice.
Emergency Response Services
I should add that thanks to the Brattleboro Housing Authority staff and planning the properly installed water sprinklers and quick damage response contained the emergency and repairs were quick.
Additionally, the fast response of the fire, police and emergency medical services saved lives and prevented serious injury.
Elliot Tower Fires
I was one of the tenants displaced by that fire. For me, it was only for a day. Some of the tenants could not return to their apartments for up to 6 months (water damage). The deceased was smoking in bed and fell asleep. The presence of oxygen accelerated the fire.
Since I’ve been living there, I have been displaced three times due to cigarette-caused fires. We also had three fires caused by cooking something and forgetting about it. One guy even went out leaving his dinner to burn on the stove.
I am happy to report that Sam Elliot Apartments went smoke-free on May 1, 2014.
The most intense addiction known to man.
“I am happy to report that Sam Elliot Apartments went smoke-free on May 1, 2014.”
This is good news… maybe.
The blood level requirements for the nicotine and other chemicals in cigarettes bring on the most intense addiction known to man.
No other drug…I repeat: “no other drug” grips the human addiction process like cigarettes.
Every twenty minutes to less than one hour, each cigarette smoker, from awakening until they are too tired to respond to the addictive calling (usually between 1 and 3 am), must satisfy the most unyielding craving that addicts can experience.
Does anyone believe that any landlord fails to understand that cigarette smokers really are not going out outside in freezing, raining, snowy weather just to have their cigarette?
Does anyone believe that any landlord fails to understand that cigarette smokers really are not going outside at 1 – 3 o’clock in the morning just to have their cigarette?
Does anyone believe that any landlord fails to understand that cigarette smokers really will drag their sorry asses outside in the morning when they first arise, and pass up their first cup of coffee just to comply with building no smoking regulations?
Common sense and long-term apartment experience tells me…it ain’t going to, and, it don’t happen. Does anyone not believe me?
Just ask KAlden.
Just ask any of us victims of secondhand cigarette smoke.
A temporary fix
After many weeks of emails, certified letters,filing a preliminary suit under the ADA, phone calls and getting documentation from all of my medical doctors attesting to the fact that living with second hand smoke was making not only my pulmonary diseases but my other illnesses much worse – the property owner sent a letter to the smoking tenant requesting that they stop smoking. A “Thank You for Not Smoking” sign was nailed to the porch. The tenant has stopped smoking which is good for both my health and hers but in my 6 years of living here she has stopped smoking many, many times and has always begun again. Which, of course, is the nature of the beast. A building/ property wide smoke free zone has not been established so I envision having to go through this situation again – maybe with this tenant -maybe with whatever future tenants might move in.
Lease Violation
In Elliot and Hayes, there are areas specifically designated for smoking. It is banned anywhere else. The Street and Sidewalk are town property, and town rules apply.
We have not established a smoking police, nor have smoking vigilantes materialized.
Smoking in prohibited areas will be investigated as a possible lease violation, and treated as any other violation.
August 1 marks the 4th month the ban has been in effect. I am unaware of any violations.
An interesting second order consequence has been an increase in conviviality, at least among the smokers. Even a few non-smokers choose to participate.
Evictions
“Does anyone believe that any landlord fails to understand that cigarette smokers really are not going out outside in freezing, raining, snowy weather just to have their cigarette?”
Does anyone not believe there are other means of delivering nicotine on schedule besides smoking?
I’m not anticipating the first eviction.
Vermont’s indoor residential smoking laws are nonexistent ?
I think the best way to protect people of all ages and conditions is to urge your state legislatures to ban all indoor smoking in residences and workplaces. As it is Vermont’s indoor residential smoking laws are nonexistent.
Statewide smoking ban: Effective September 1, 2005, smoking is banned in all enclosed workplaces in Vermont, including all bars and restaurants,] except in areas of owner-operated businesses with no employees that are not open to the public, although separately ventilated designated smoking areas in businesses where employees are not required to be were exempt until July 1, 2009. Designated unenclosed smoking areas in businesses where the layout of the workplace is such that smoking would not be a physical irritation to any nonsmoking employee and three-fourths of the employees agreed were also exempt until July 1, 2009. The Vermont Veterans Home in Bennington is the only non-owner-operated workplace in the state permitted to allow smoking.[395] Vermont is one of the few states with a statewide smoking ban that does not expressly exempt tobacconists, and is the only state that does not allow the designation of hotel/motel smoking rooms. Local governments may regulate smoking more stringently than the state law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_smoking_bans_in_the_United_States#.C2.A0Vermont
Global Warning
If one is able to figure out how many cigs are smoked worldwide in a year, and how much CO2 one cig releases, what impact would that have on global climate change?
(I bet RJ Reynolds knows, but they ain’t sayin’).
The CIG industry's impact on the planet is less publicly known
Good point…I’ll bet you’re right – RJR knows their damage profile all too well, equal to their knowledge of their profits….
“Climate Change”
Cigarette use is a contributor to anthropomorphic climate change (caused by human activities), as cigarette smoke contains greenhouse-effect-causing gases carbon dioxide and methane.
“Smoking worldwide releases about 2.6 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide in the air every year. It also releases about 5.2 billion kilograms of methane every year.”7
Agricultural practices associated with tobacco growing cause widespread environmental and public health problems. A toxic cocktail of agricultural pesticides and herbicides used on tobacco farms runs off into streams, rivers and lakes.
dry river bed in Kenya highlights the perils of catastrophic climate change.
Toxic Pesticides & Soil Depletion
Agricultural practices associated with tobacco growing cause widespread environmental and public health problems. A toxic cocktail of agricultural pesticides and herbicides used on tobacco farms runs off into streams, rivers and lakes.
The intensive nature of tobacco farming quickly leads to soil becoming depleted of its naturally occurring minerals. “Tobacco depletes soil nutrients at a much faster rate than most crops,” exacerbated by specific growing practices such as topping9 and desuckering (the removal, either by hand or chemical spraying, of young shoots from a tobacco plant in order to ensure the robust growth of large leaves), thus triggering a “massive outflow of nutrients” from the soil.10
Read full text: http://www.nsra-adnf.ca/cms/file/files/pdf/factsheet.pdf
Smoking is Smoking
You do realize that the enforcement of a “No Smoking” ban will ban all smoking, period, right?
That includes pot smoking as well.
The exposure to secondhand smoke syndrome cannot be compared
Just waitin’ for mr. mike, just waitin’ you. You’re not unlike a book with an obvious cover.
I will say, that if for any reason, a building/property wide smoking ban does not apply to marijuana, I will not be overly alarmed.
I’m not so narrowminded as to think there is even a remote comparison between the two different “smokes.”
I’ll also add, that marijuana smokers will far more likely comply with the regulations than cigarette smokers because the “every-twenty-minute addiction” that cigarette smokers suffer from does not generally apply to marijuana smokers.
Hell, some pot smokers only smoke occassionally, sometimes every couple of months or days, or once a day. The exposure to secondhand smoke syndrome cannot be compared between cigs and pot smokers. You’re a fool if you think it does.
Not so cigarette smokers who “must,” whether they want to or not, smoke daily, all day long with little or no control over their reckless and dangerous drug habit.
Give it up kid. You ain’t ever going to win this.
We realize it
Smoking ANY SUBSTANCE regardless of its legality (herbs, cornsilk, fish offal, whatever) is banned in Sam Elliot and in Hayes Court. Even persons authorized by the State to consume medical marijuana must use other means of consumption.
HUD vs Private
US Department of Housing and Urban Developemnt (HUD)is guided by current federal law.
There are state and federal indoor smoking regulations that apply to different situations that are changing as new laws concerning marijuana and cigarettes go into effect. Private housing as distinct from federal housing, of course, is, if in fact it’s regulated at all, are regulated separately from federal. KAlden’s example, for instance, is related to a private landlord situation. Not all landlords insist on no-smoking tenants.
I have never heard of a cig-smoker violating no smoking regulations being evicted by a private landlord.
I read of a state housing authority (in the mid-west?) last year that could exercise it’s own discretion in regards to HUD. Nevertheless, the landscape is changing as the laws change.
The overall prevalence
(Reuters et al) – “ITC Ltd (ITC.NS), India’s largest cigarette maker and India’s fourth-biggest company by market value sells four out of every five cigarettes sold in India and is nearly 25 percent-owned by British American Tobacco (BATS.L).
India’s population is 1.3 billion. Forty-six percent of them smoke cigarettes.
China’s population is 1.35 billion. China produces 42% of the world’s cigarettes, there are 350 million Chinese smokers
Globally, more than a third of all people (2.4 BILLION) are regularly exposed to the harmful effects of Secondhand smoke. This exposure is responsible for about 600,000 deaths per year, and about 1% of the global burden of disease worldwide. This risk factor is prevalent in practically every region of the world.
Worldwide, cigarettes are smoked by over 1.1 billion people…?
Holy Sh*t!