Genesee County Health Department

Better Life Through Better Health

Release Date:  Immediate Release           Kill Date:  February 28, 2005

Contact Person:  Ann Goldon            

Phone: (810) 341-5898

RE:  Campaign Announced to Promote Smoke-Free Apartment Policies  

Responding to the many complaints received in recent years from tenants in apartments about secondhand smoke seeping into their units from adjoining apartments, as well as questions from landlords about their right to adopt smoke-free policies, the Genesee County Health Department, Smoke-free, Multi-Agency Resource Team (SMART) and the Smoke-Free Environments Law Project (SFELP) of The Center for Social Gerontology, Inc. (TCSG) today announced the initiation of a new campaign to encourage landlords to voluntarily adopt smoke-free policies in their apartment buildings.  

The centerpiece of the smoke-free apartment campaign is a new web site called  mismokefreeapartment.org  which stands for " Michigan smoke-free apartment."  The web site has two major sections – one targeted to landlords, and one to tenants.   

The smoke-free apartment campaign includes a survey which will be mailed to landlords in early February to determine the current availability of smoke-free apartments.  In addition, in coming weeks in certain localities in the state there will be a combination of billboards, radio ads, and a series of postcard mailings to landlords.  Assistance in developing and implementing smoke-free apartment policies will be available from SFELP, the Genesee County Health Department and the SMART Coalition.  

"Currently very few landlords are aware that they have a legal right to adopt smoke-free policies in their apartment buildings and that there is no 'right to smoke'.  Likewise, most tenants are unaware of their rights to a smoke-free environment," stated Jim Bergman, TCSG Co-Director and Director of SFELP.  "It is our hope that landlords will take advantage of the information and assistance we are making available and will begin adopting smoke-free policies in their apartments, since this is an area in which voluntary action is preferable to enacting smoke-free apartment laws."   

Genesee County Board of Health member, and SMART Coalition member Kay Doerr, said, "the information on the web site also makes it clear that going smoke-free saves money for landlords and makes for better relations among tenants.  Smoke-free policies reduce maintenance costs and risks of fires.   Further, since the vast majority of tenants are not smokers, the market for smoke-free apartments is much larger than for smoky apartments."  

SMART Coalition Coordinator, Ann Goldon, of the Genesee County Health Department, said, "we receive many requests from people, especially those with asthma or other respiratory diseases, for information about the availability of smoke-free apartments.  Currently, we lack such information.  Therefore, in early February, we will begin mailing a short survey to local landlords asking them to help identify smoke-free apartments currently on the market.  If they wish, those apartments can be placed on a list of smoke-free apartments that will be added to the mismokefreeapartment.org web site."  

Jim Bergman of SFELP said that “a series of postcards will also be mailed to landlords in late January and in the three next months informing them of the mismokefreepartment.org web site and the reasons they should consider adopting smoke-free apartment policies.”  

Smoke-free apartment initiatives are beginning to be undertaken in a number of communities in the United States .  "In fact,"  Bergman said, "this is the new frontier in combating the health hazards of secondhand smoke.  According to the U.S. Public Health Service, secondhand smoke is a known carcinogen – a cancer-causing agent.  Since the home is where people spend much of their time, people who live in apartments and condominiums have a need and a right to be protected from secondhand smoke that insidiously creeps into their apartment from a neighboring unit.  We expect, in the next few years, that smoke-free apartments will increase in number and landlords will see this as a major selling point in advertising their apartments.  We also expect newspapers will add 'smoke-free' to their classified listings to aid potential renters."  

The smoke-free apartment campaign will begin in February in the following counties:  Genesee ; Ingham; Ogemaw; Sanilac; Washtenaw; and all 15 counties in the Upper Peninsula .  

To access the web site to learn more, go to http://www.mismokefreeapartment.org.  For additional information, go to the Apartments & Condominiums section of the SFELP site at http://www.tcsg.org/sfelp/apartment.htm or contact Ann Goldon at the Genesee County Health Department at (810) 341-5898 or agoldon@gchd.us.