Vallejo to weigh indoor smoking ban for apartments, condos
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The Vallejo City Council will debate a proposal next week that would ban smoking in apartments, condominiums, duplexes and townhouses.
The proposal would update an existing ordinance that already prohibits smoking in city-owned buildings and most private and public places of employment.
In a staff report published on Wednesday, city officials say the proposal is an attempt to better protect “the city’s most-vulnerable residents” who may be exposed to second-hand cigarette smoke in multi-unit homes.
“Secondhand smoke in multi-unit housing drifts through doorways, cracks in walls, electrical lines, ventilation systems and plumbing,” the staff report said. “The Surgeon General has stated that eliminating smoking in indoor spaces is the only way to fully protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke exposure, and that separating smokers from nonsmokers, cleaning the air, and ventilating buildings cannot completely prevent secondhand smoke exposure.”
City officials say apartments and other types of multi-unit residences are more likely to house poorer citizens, minorities and children, who were all said to be more affected by the harm of second-hand smoke compared to those who live in single-family houses.
The staff report makes heavy claims about the effects of second-hand tobacco smoke, but a draft of the proposed ordinance reviewed by Solano NewsNet would also prohibit smoking cannabis and using vape pens in multi-unit homes.
Landlords would be responsible for enforcing the ban. The ordinance would allow residents affected by second-hand smoke to bring a legal action against their landlord in state court.
The ban would not prohibit smoking in single-family houses, unless the property had an accessory dwelling unit like a guest home.
The proposal is not without precedent: In 2019, city officials in Benicia enacted a similar ban on indoor smoking within apartments and other multi-unit homes. Around the same time, officials in San Francisco County approved their own ban, though the proposal was amended to allow for indoor cannabis use.
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