Smoke alarm: Oklahoma tenants get few tobacco-free options
While some areas are enacting restrictions, that’s not the case here
BY VALLERY BROWN
Comments 
36
Published: April 25, 2009
Laura Clay says she was being poisoned by a neighbor’s cigarette smoke.
Laura Clay holds her son Cameron who was born prematurely while Clay was living in an apartment in Norman. Photo by STEVE SISNEY, THE OKLAHOMAN
Multimedia
More Info
ONLINE
"�Video
See a video on Laura Clay’s story. Newsok.com
NewsOK Related Articles
- Multi-unit matter has some people fired up
04/25/2009 Lydia Green, an attorney and testing coordinator who works for the Metropolitan Fair Housing Association, said she understands that smokers often are forced...
Clay, 31, of
Norman, said she started complaining to her landlord about the smoke coming in the vents of her apartment a short time after moving there in 2007. When her 8-year-old daughter’s asthma worsened and her son was born prematurely in summer 2008, Clay quit asking and started demanding that something be done.
"They told me there was nothing they could do,” Clay said, "that my neighbors had every right to smoke in their apartment. But we couldn’t breathe.”
Clay said the manager refused to move her to another unit, and efforts to fix the ventilation didn’t work. Her husband was away in the military and she had no money to move. She was evicted when she refused to pay.
Then she started calling around for advice.
She reached
Doug Matheny, tobacco use prevention chief for the state Health Department. He said secondhand smoke exposure in multi-unit housing like apartment complexes is an issue he regularly gets calls about.
Municipalities and counties across the country, including areas in
Washington,
California and
Minnesota, have already banned or restricted smoking in multi-unit or public housing.
Matheny said
Oklahoma isn’t looking at policy options, but officials want to educate people about the health risks.
Percy Brown, project coordinator for the Tobacco Free Zone program, is working on a research project examining smoking trends in three of the
Tulsa Housing Authority’s 14 communities.
He said he would like to see public housing and private communities figure out ways to accommodate smokers while protecting nonsmokers by reserving buildings specifically for each group.
In public housing, like other multi-family sites with units in blocks or pairs, Brown said smoke can easily seep through walls and vents.
What are the options?
Officials say smoking is not allowed in the common areas of Tulsa and
Oklahoma City public housing communities, but it is not restricted in units.
Oklahoma City Housing Authority Assistant Executive Director Mark Gillett said although many communities nationwide have banned or restricted smoking in a similar manner to what Brown suggests, his agency has no long-term plans to do so.
"It’s an interesting concept,” he said. "All sides have valid opinions.”
But Brown argues that secondhand smoke is especially a problem for lower-income individuals, children, senior citizens and the disabled in apartments or public housing.
Matheny said he believes Brown’s ideas are reasonable.
"It is a minority who smoke, so having entirely smoke-free buildings within a complex so that nonsmokers are not exposed seems like a good idea,” Matheny said.
Leave a Comment
News Photo Galleriesview all
Prev
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online
Thank you for joining our conversations on newsok. We encourage your discussions but ask that you stay within the bounds of our terms and conditions. Please help us by reporting comments that violate these guidelines. To review our rules of engagement, go to Commenting and posting policy.
Log in below or sign up (it's free).
http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/secondhandsmoke/secondhandsmoke.pdf