Smokefree DC is a citizen-based group whose goal is to promote smokefree environments in Washington, DC.
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By Angela Bradbery, on January 19, 2012
The Washington Post has a good story this week detailing how more nonsmokers who live in apartments and condos are speaking up about secondhand smoke intruding into their living spaces.
The article notes that while it used to be assumed that smokers have a right to smoke in their homes, more people are realizing that nonsmokers also have a right to breathe clean air in their homes.
Secondhand smoke is more than just a nuisance — it’s a health hazard. For children and people with asthma or compromised immune systems, secondhand smoke is particularly harmful.
The story quotes one resident whose young daughter has asthma:
I leave doors and windows open, even as I sleep … I’ve moved to sleep in my daughter’s room now because the other side of the apartment is full of smoke.
That’s just wrong. Sorry folks, but the right to breathe clean air in one’s home trumps the “right” to smoke in one’s home every time.
Continue reading It’s a trend: Nonsmokers in apartments and condos are speaking up against secondhand smoke
By Angela Bradbery, on January 9, 2012
Secondhand smoke costs the state of Indiana $1.3 billion – yes, billion with a “b” — per year, a new study shows.
The study, by Indiana University’s School of Medicine, comes as the state considers enacting a smokefree workplace law.
Clearly, it should. The numbers alone are staggering – the cost of secondhand smoke amounts to $201 per Hoosier per year. And 1,400 of the 50,000 deaths that are attributable each year in the U.S. to secondhand smoke occur in Indiana.
What are Indiana lawmakers waiting for?
By Angela Bradbery, on December 18, 2011
The New York Times had an excellent story today about how housing authorities are increasingly going smokefree.
In 2005, 32 housing authorities had smokefree policies in effect. By the end of 2011, 285 will.
Cities that have or plan to make public housing smokefree: Boston (in September), Detroit, San Antonio and Portland, Ore.
The reason?
The bans are largely a response to the risks posed to nonsmokers by secondhand smoke. In addition, property managers say smokeless apartments are cheaper to clean, especially if there is carpeting, and reduce the risk of fire.
The story notes the increasing awareness of the health harms of secondhand smoke migrating from one apartment to another. Although the story has a quote from a smoker concerned about her supposed rights (there is no right to smoke, btw), it recognizes that there are other people in the picture (tenants) who have rights too (the right to breathe clean air, for instance).
New York City has not yet enacted a smokefree policy in its public housing.
Washington, D.C.? Of course not. This is the city that just permanently weakened its smokefree law via a budget amendment.
By Angela Bradbery, on December 7, 2011
Here’s more reason to support smokefree laws: A new Mayo Clinic study shows that in one Minnesota county that instituted a smokefree workplace law, heart attacks dropped by half.
In addition, the number of people who died suddenly of heart disease was cut in half. These were the effects of a smokefree workplace law enacted in Olmsted County, Minnesota. Researchers looked at medical data covering both the 18 months before and after the law took effect.
The study’s abstract was presented recently at a meeting of the American Heart Association, The Augusta Chronicle reports. The Journal of the American Medical Association is considering publishing it.
Dr. Richard Hurt, the director of the Nicotine Dependence Center at Mayo Clinic and lead author of the study, told the paper:
For everyone, we should minimize the exposure to secondhand smoke. But for people with known heart disease, they should have no – literally no – exposure to second-hand smoke because the risk is too high.
By Angela Bradbery, on November 16, 2011
Saying that smoking in cars exposes people to 23 times more toxins than a smoky bar, the British Medical Association is calling on the government to make cars smokefree.
Children, they note, are particularly vulnerable to the poisons contained in secondhand smoke.
Some countries, such as Canada and Australia, already require cars to be smokefree when children are riding in them. Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Maine and Puerto Rico have followed suit, according to information compiled by Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights.
In the District several years ago, D.C. Councilmember Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) introduced a similar bill to prohibit smoking in cars when children are present but never pursued it.
By Angela Bradbery, on October 31, 2011
Turns out the conflict of interest that Councilmember Jack Evans (Ward 2) had with regards to the convention center development was with ING Clarion Real Estate Investment. Evans’ firm, Patton Boggs, represented ING, an equity partner in the hotel deal.
Evans is phenomenally myopic. This is from The Washington Post:
Evans confirmed today that Patton Boggs represented ING at the time. He said that he does not consider that to be an actual conflict of interest because ING has no direct business relationship with the city on the deal, only with the developers.
Huh? John Hanrahan, a former reporter-turned-activist, explains the problem:
What is troubling to activist John Hanrahan is not only that Evans declined to detail the reasons for his recusal for so long — he told Washington City Paper last week that he did not want to respond to Hanrahan directly, calling him a “]expletive] idiot” — but that Evans continued to shepherd the deal to fruition after the council votes, working with then-Attorney General Peter J. Nickles to clear up a legal dispute involving Marriott that threatened to delay or even scuttle the hotel project. Evans’s involvement, he argues, indirectly benefitted ING’s investment in the project.
“Jack Evans unrecused himself and … helped put this deal back on track,” said Hanrahan.
But it gets worse. Evans told Post reporter Mike DeBonis that he didn’t say anything about ING when asked about a conflict of interest last week because everyone was focused on a potential conflict they thought Evans had with Marriott.
Wow. So Evans thought he could just stay quiet about it and he would get away with it. What astounding arrogance.
Apparently Jack doesn’t think the rules apply to him. Yet another reason that it’s time for Jack Evans to go.
By Angela Bradbery, on October 30, 2011
We’ve shown previously in this space the cronyism of Councilmember Jack Evans (Ward 2), who circumvented the public hearing process to give his buddies in the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick the green light to smoke cigars at their annual St. Patrick’s Day event.
Well, here’s an interesting piece that raises deeper questions about Evans’ ethics.
The Fight Back blog observes that the Occupy DC protests are in Evans district, but notes that:
Evans embodies precisely what the occupiers oppose: undue corporate influence on government. In addition to his $125,000 council salary, Evans earns $240,000 a year from Patton Boggs, but good luck trying to figure out what the councilmember does for the powerful law/lobby firm.
The Fight Back goes on to quote veteran D.C. reporter John Hanrahan, who questions Evans’ role in the convention center hotel deal. It seems as though Evans was very involved until the end, when he recused himself because the firm he works for represents Marriott, which was seeking city assistance.
Why didn’t Evans recuse himself sooner? And why hasn’t he explained his recusals to the Office of Campaign Finance and the Board of Elections and Ethics?
By Angela Bradbery, on October 13, 2011
Herman Cain, the former pizza CEO now running for president in the Republican primary, worked closely with the tobacco industry and supported efforts to defeat smokefree workplace policies, Think Progress reports.
Cain was a lobbyist for the National Restaurant Association, and in that capacity met frequently with tobacco industry lobbyists. He even signed up for a pro-tobacco publicity tour.
In addition:
Blurring the lines between restaurant industry caretaker and tobacco company representative, Cain accepted hefty donations from tobacco corporations. Cain worked to snuff out a Senate bill that would have reigned in smoking at restaurants and other facilities around the country.
‘Nuff said.
By Angela Bradbery, on October 11, 2011
 flickr photo courtesy of picturesinmylife_yls
Last night, several Smokefree DC representatives met with Fiona Greig, who is planning to challenge Jack Evans in Ward 2 next year.
Greig is everything Evans is not. She is progressive. She’s into improving our mass transit system and creating more green spaces. She’s an avid cyclist.
Most important, she isn’t co-opted by developers and corporate interests.
Greig is also on board with the concept of smokefree workplaces. She understood all that was wrong with Evans’ budget amendment that weakened the law and bypassed the public.
Greig likely will formally announce her candidacy soon, and we’ll learn more about her stances on issues in the coming weeks. Some of her ideas are already posted on her exploratory website. Although she doesn’t yet have much name recognition, that hopefully will change quickly. She is someone new who could bring a lot of good ideas to a Council that seems in desperate need of them.
By Angela Bradbery, on September 20, 2011
On the bright side, the huge exemption to the smokefree workplaces law just got just smaller.
The D.C. Council today approved a measure that would limit it to two events per year: Fight Night (a charity fundraiser) and the annual event held by the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, to which Councilmember Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) has ties.
That’s about the only good thing that we can say. The fact that the Council cavalierly and permanently weakened the popular health law is hugely problematic. The fact that it did so by bypassing the committee process – therefore ensuring no public input or debate – is even worse.
The Council was so caught up in a heated debate over taxes and bonds that they didn’t even debate the exemption, which is for two cigar-smoking events a year.
It was amusing, though, to witness Evans’ hypocrisy. He had the gall to complain that his colleagues had bypassed the committee process on the tax issue … which of course is exactly what he and Councilmember Michael Brown (D-At Large) did when pushing the smokefree exemption. In fact, he even told us when we ran into him recently at the Wilson Building that he bypassed the committee process because otherwise, he would lose.
So there you have it. Not a proud moment for the D.C. Council.
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