Tacoma city officials are already considering a ban on smoking in city parks.
Now they are discussing whether to add apartment buildings to the list of no-smoking zones.
Members of the Tacoma City Council’s Neighborhoods and Housing Committee heard a report this week about a variety of ways the city could go about banning smoking in apartments and other multi-family housing units.
The report came from officials from the city’s Human Rights and Human Services Department.
The officials made no recommendations about whether to pursue any of them, and council members took no action at Monday’s meeting.
Mayor Bill Baarsma said the city would continue looking at the issue and revisit it in the near future.
Second-hand smoke is responsible for the early deaths of 65,000 Americans each year and is the third-leading preventable cause of death in the U.S., surpassed only by smoking and alcohol consumption, the report states.
The report laid out options for ways the city could get involved that ranged from enacting a total ban on smoking in multifamily housing units to taking no action and allowing the market to decide whether to create smoke-free buildings.
Some options in between include banning smoking only in common areas or a percentage of the units in a complex, or doling out incentives or recognition for landlords who enact their own smoke-free policies.
With any kind of ban, whether it’s one imposed by the government or a private landlord, enforcement will be difficult, City Attorney Elizabeth Pauli said.
“Clearly, that’s the issue,” Pauli said. “It’s difficult if not impossible to enforce.”
No Washington cities ban smoking in apartments, but at least one Oregon-based property management company that operates in Washington has a no-smoking policy for its residents, said Jacqueline Strong Moss, the city’s human rights manager.
The company, Guardian Management, has properties in Federal Way, Kent, Des Moines and several other Washington cities.
In California, Belmont and Calabasas have enacted smoking bans. Officials in Calabasas passed an ordinance last year requiring landlords to prohibit smoking in at least 80 percent of new and existing apartments, including patios and balconies, according to the Tacoma report. Landlords have until 2012 to permanently designate the nonsmoking units.
The Belmont ban goes even further. Officials there passed an ordinance in 2007 prohibiting smoking in all new and existing apartments and condominiums that share a common floor and/or ceiling. Violations are subject to a $100 fine.
The Tacoma Housing Authority operates a 77-unit building for elderly and disabled persons that became smoke-free last year, according to the report. The Seattle Housing Authority also operates a smoke-free complex for residents age 62 and older, and the King County and Walla Walla housing authorities went smoke-free in 2007.
Kelly Halligan, an apartment manager who attended the Tacoma committee meeting, is pushing for a change in the state Landlord-Tenant Act that would recognize smoking as a nuisance similar to a loud stereo. Her complex went smoke-free Dec. 1.
If that happened, tenants or owners statewide could require people to stop smoking or make them move, Halligan said.
Jason Hagey: 253-597-8542
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