The Portland and South Portland housing authorities should follow the lead of Westbrook Housing, which is banning smoking in its 450 apartments starting Jan. 1, 2009.
More and more places are going smoke-free these days, and that’s a good thing. It’s strange now, when visiting another state, to walk into a restaurant or bar where smoking is still allowed. It seems anachronistic. Smokers might bemoan the inconvenience or the loss of rights, but the beneficiary is our collective health.
Officials at Westbrook Housing say they have been considering banning smoking for some time, but a fire at Riverview Terrace in December prompted them to move. The fire was caused by a woman who was smoking near her oxygen tank. That fire, which led to the evacuation of 60 residents, endangered the lives of everyone else in the building.
Besides being a fire danger, second-hand smoke can be a danger to elderly and disabled people, particularly those with respiratory and heart problems.
Some people might see this ban as an infringement on one of the last places people can smoke – their homes – but Westbrook Housing is different from a private home because it’s publicly subsidized. However, even many private landlords do not allow smoking in their buildings.
It may be that soon the only places people will be able to smoke are in homes they own or on the street, and that’s all right. We would all be healthier because of it, and it would remain legal for those who would like to continue doing it. They would simply have to take it outside.
A new YouTube generation
Those in management at Westbrook Housing weren’t the only ones showing a little chutzpah last week. Residents at Larrabee Village showed they were just as Web savvy as the YouTube generation graduating from high school a couple of weeks ago.
The residents shot a video of themselves pushing their broken-down activities bus and put it on the Web site that plays host to all kinds of amateur and professional video clips – all in an attempt to get the attention of Ellen DeGeneres, star of her own self-titled talk show, whom they would like to help them buy a new bus.
The bus, which used to take them on trips to the grocery store or on fun trips to plays and see foliage, broke down this winter after numerous repairs. The Westbrook Housing staff is planning to raise money to replace it through advertising and registration fees for a fall golf tournament, and residents believe getting DeGeneres – or just Ellen, as fans know her – and the accompanying publicity would help.
The creativity and energy these residents have shown is deserving of reward. It shows how potentially empowering, or at least fun, the Internet and Web sites like YouTube can be at their best. We hope Ellen sees this video and recognizes that.
Brendan Moran, editor
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