Do you think it should be illegal to smoke in your apartment?

No.

I think it should be up to the landlord to set the policy. As much as I’d love to live in an apartment where my neighbors didn’t smoke, I’m not interested in the state forcing them to comply to my wishes in this regard.

What @SavoirFaire said. Besides, unless you can enforce a “No Smoking Anywhere On The Property” ordinance, it would really make no difference.

No.

Do you have any idea how stupid your question sounds??

I agree with @SavoirFaire, to a point

A landlord should be bound by law to inform potential tenants that their apartment would not have a closed ventilation system, and that contaminants may be shared between apartments. That way a potential tenant can turn down the apartment and find a place more suitable to them. A person chooses to smoke, they do not choose to have emphysema, or asthma, or other conditions affected by second-hand smoke. (Or, for that matter, second-hand enchiladas or burnt toast).

The landlord should be well within his rights to charge an extra deposit on smokers for the necessary decontamination after the tenants leave.

If they can step all over the 2nd Amendment rights, they will step over anything.

@SecondHandStoke: Please explain to me why it is a stupid question.

Please note that I am not asking it to argue a certain viewpoint. I think I posted the question in an open fashion so as not to show I’m taking one side over the other. Usually when I post questions on here, I do so in that manner, and I usually try not to put my opinion on at all, or maybe not until a bunch of people have answered.

I have shared living space with smokers, and it severely impacted my husband’s health. That was when the guy “only” smoked in his room, with the door closed.

Knowing an apartment had an open ventilation system between apartments would be enough to make me turn down a place and look elsewhere.

Yes, one should not be allowed to smoke in a place with common air sources.

@SecondHandStoke You continue to defend your right to smoke, But you have a very libertarian view of rights, that you get the rights and everybody else gets the consequences. I don’t want to be around your off-gassing, go smoke somewhere that won;t make me have to suck in your poison.

@Hypocrisy_Central Please name the 2nd Amendment Rights that have been stepped on in the last ten years.

@jca I rent an apartment and the owners of the facility do not permit smoking anywhere on their property. As a former smoker I understand this and agree with it. It is in the lease agreement that this is non smoking property. You can be evicted here if you or your guests smoke in the apartments. Owners have the legitimate right.

I think it should depend on the apartment owner. As a smoker, I’d go outside even if we were allowed to smoke in the apartment. Virtually all the smokers I know don’t smoke in their houses.

Some motels have brought smoking rooms back. I would much prefer a no-smoking room with an outside entrance. This one motel we stayed in in Springfield Mo was da bomb! They actually had small patio tables and two chairs sitting outside of each room. We sat out there in the evenings and watched the kids swim in the pool. It was nice.

Yes, it should be illegal. Yes, my right to be able to breathe trumps some fool’s right to kill himself in a way that affects my health and wellbeing.

Once again, this comes down to the opposing perspectives of liberals and conservatives on freedom. One’s freedom to do a thing (conservative) vs. the freedom to not have a thing done to one (liberal).

I’m a smokin’ liberal!

I think landlords should have the right to not allow smoking on their property.

They definitely should charge a premium to smoking renters as property insurance often costs more if there are smokers on the premises.

__

Then again, I’d pay a premium to live in a building that had no smokers.

__

Apparently, I’m for segregation based on smoking. Must mull this over.

Everyone has rights, and everyone needs to respect other people’s rights. And I agree, some rights trump others. The end.

Here is an article quoting a study by UC Davis that shows.Smoking is a leading cause of fires and deaths .

“Based on a worldwide study of smoking-related fire and disaster data, UC Davis epidemiologists show smoking is a leading cause of fires and death from fires globally, resulting in an estimated cost of nearly $7 billion in the United States and $27.2 billion worldwide in 1998. The study is published in the August issue of Preventive Medicine.”

“Smoking causes an estimated 30 percent of fire deaths in the United States and 10 percent of fire deaths worldwide. Each year, over one billion smokers throughout the world light over 6 trillion cigarettes, creating a potential source of ignition from cigarette butts and from cigarette lighters and matches that fall into the hands of young children.”

The study is from 2000. Maybe there are newer numbers.

Your own apartment? No. So long as those who smoke do it in their own room and not on the hallway.

It’s a common rule if one wants to smoke in an apartment room he/she can do it only in veranda or other outdoor-ish room.

@Seek Yeah, I agree with both of those stipulations. Laws that require people to provide information do not violate anyone’s rights (and, in fact, support the economic right of consumers to spend their money how they choose even if they choose poorly). And the extra deposit is really just an extension of the landlord’s right to set the terms of the lease—within certain limits, of course—and one that makes perfect sense given the economic trade-offs you mention.

No, but landlords should be encouraged, via tax incentives, to ban smoking in their lease contracts.

They should develop and globally release a virus that changes human bodies in a way that any cigarette smoke inhaled is completely absorbed by their bodies, so that they can no longer exhale the smoke.
I would love to see smokers turn into coal over time.

It should be up to the landlord to dictate. It really seeps in and even months after the smoker moves out it can irritate a non-smoker that moves in. And you will probably have to paint, replace the carpet, and replace the drapes.

I don’t really think it is any different from allow pets or not allowing them. Both do damage.

But I don’t think it should be something the government worries about. If you want to smoke find a place that allows it. If you don’t want to be around it find a place that doesn’t. At least here finding a place that allows smoking is pretty hard. But that isn’t a government thing.

No, this should be strictly the right of the property owner.

@dappled_leaves “Once again, this comes down to the opposing perspectives of liberals and conservatives on freedom. One’s freedom to do a thing (conservative) vs. the freedom to not have a thing done to one (liberal).”

Smoker here. I’m also probably one of the most liberal posters on this forum. Your asinine attempt to paint this as a liberal vs conservative thing fails.

I don’t think she was suggesting that all smokers are conservative, @Darth_Algar. Just those who feel it’s their right to smoke anywhere they want. You and I don’t feel that way, so we aren’t conservatives.

I’m a socialist and think it isn’t in the purview of the the government to dictate this. I am also a smoker.

edit :: I am totally fine with the government banning smoking from inside bars and restaurants.

I am not a smoker and I think this would be a bad law. Information, yes, banning, no.

@Dutchess_III

Right, and apparently smoking in your own domicile = smoking anywhere you want.

I consider an apartment a shared domicile. That’s just me.

I think smoking should be outlawed everywhere, all the time.

Well, that would make you a conservative, if you would outlaw people smoking in their own homes and on their own property.

I’m against the public use of dangerous drugs.

I specified our own homes and property.

Sorry, we are miscommunicating. Members of the public, such as you and I and our neighbors should not be allowed to use dangerous drugs anywhere.

Did you know that the poison gets into every cell of a smoker’s body, and seeps out on the furniture they sit on and the clothes they wear, not to mention the curtains, walls and carpets of their homes. If they sit in your car, they leave some of that stuff behind.

Aright.

If you signed a “smoke free lease”, then absolutely.

@ibstubro: If it were illegal, then the law would trump a lease.

A lease is a legally binding agreement.
A lease can be the law.

If you sign a smoke free/pet free/whatever free lease and you’re found in non-compliance, then the law can be used to remove you from the premises.

I believe in the right of like minded individuals to congregate as they see fit.

Do I believe building owners should have the right to declare their buildings “smoke free” and enforce that, legally?
Absolutely!
Do I believe the law has the right to declare a building I own, maintain, and pay taxes on “smoke free” without outlawing smoking in general?
Fuck, no.

I don’t know the legal terminology, but there are agreements between individuals and blanket agreements/laws. IMO you either gather enough support to pass a blanket agreement/law to ban smoking, or you rely on the individual agreements to protect the individuals.
Smoking is either legal or illegal. It’s as simple as that.
If it’s legal, I should be able to own a smoke-free/smoking restaurant/apartment building/store etc as long as it’s clearly designated before anyone enters.

IMO, either garner enough support to outright prohibit smoking, or STFU.

And I say that as a former smoker, quit these last 17–18 years or so.

I haven’t read all of the other responses, so forgive me if someone has already touched on this, but the first few responses ignored the issue entirely, so here goes …

The primary reason that rules might be enacted to prohibit smoking – of anything – in an apartment building has to do with health and safety. I’m not even talking about the minor annoyance of people who might have to smell second-hand smoke, or who have various health complaints associated with that. (Mostly in their minds, I think, but I agree that heavy smoke is frequently annoying and irritating to the eyes and to breathing.) That’s not at all the major issue.

The primary problem always is people smoking in bed or on heavily upholstered furniture who fall asleep (or simply get neglectful of a lighted cigarette or cigar butt that gets away from them) and set the structure on fire.

Mattresses, couches and upholstered chairs burn like you would not believe. Not only do they burn quite hot, but they can be so thick and the fire can be so deeply embedded (no pun intended) inside that it’s like setting fire inside a coal mine. The only solution is to literally flood the structure (hard to do in an apartment) and wait it out for the hours or days it might take to fully extinguish the fire.

If it’s your own house and family that you want to risk, then that’s on you, but you should not have the “right” to cause a structure fire in an apartment that – at the very least – will make people flee for their lives, and very possibly kill them or more likely burn them out of their own homes because of your carelessness.

Whether that prohibition should be coded into law or not I’m not ready to say, because I don’t generally favor laws that prohibit otherwise lawful acts, no matter how much I dislike the acts in the first place. And I don’t like smoking. I think that if people were aware of the risks and were informed by the landlord that “this building does / does not allow residents to smoke in the apartment”, then that might be a good enough compromise.

EDIT: I should have looked for the response from @LuckyGuy. Leave it to him to get it right on the nose.

A couple of months ago the apartment building behind my house caught fire and the fire quickly spread to other apartments. The ones not touched by the fire are now ruined from water and smoke damage.

The cause: a stovetop fire.

The solution: maybe stoves should be illegal in apartment buildings.

Why stop there, @Darth_Algar?
Maybe we should ban gas and electricity from multi-family dwellings.
Safety first.

@CWOTUS I didn’t ignore the issue. I considered it, decided that—on balance—I think it should be up to the landlord, and posted my conclusion. Forgive me for not including my entire thought process in my response.

@zenvelo Please name the 2nd Amendment Rights that have been stepped on in the last ten years.
You do not remember what the 2nd Amendment is?

Of course he does. We all do. I’m interested in hearing some specifics of your claim that 2nd Amendment rights have been stepped on.
Can you not go buy a guy if you want? Can you not walk around with them if you want?

^ Can you not walk around with them if you want?
One should be, even if they have to keep the clip in their purse of pocket they should be able to have a holstered pistol at their hip. Even if one pulled a ”Martha Stewart” (which I do not think was illegal), upon getting released from federal prison should be able to purchase a piece if he/she wanted to, the Constitution never said you lost that right for going to prison.

They can walk around with them, @Hypocrisy_Central. It just looks stupid, but you can.

Now why would you want to make it easy for a violent, convicted felon to get a gun?

The Constitution also never said that you have an individual right to gun ownership.

Oh, that little part about a “well armed militia,” @Darth_Algar?

*“Well regulated”, not “well armed”, militia.

Funny that in this country’s history we’ve had all manner of regulation and prohibition of arms. At one point it was not uncommon for a town to require by law, that all individuals surrender their guns to the sheriff upon entering the town (on the condition that those guns would be returned to the individual upon leaving the town. In fact, the Supreme Court twice ruled (in the 1870s, then again in the 1930s), that the Constitution did not guarantee an individual right to firearm ownership. People understood and accepted this. It’s only been in recent decades, and thanks to the money and influence of gun industry lobby groups, that this has been interpreted differently.

@Darth_Algar Furthermore, that very same gun lobby was perfectly willing to backtrack when it was black people trying to get those guns. So even they have had their doubts about universal armament.

I stand corrected. Sry.

@Dutchess_III Now why would you want to make it easy for a violent, convicted felon to get a gun?
Oh, Martha Stewart Bernie Madoff, and others like them are surely itching to shoot up a campus or something. ~~

Why would someone want to give the keys back to a undisciplined, lacking self-control person who more than once demonstrated they can’t stay sober their license back so they can share the road with someone they may kill with their gas laden 300hp weapons?

So, you’re asking why Martha Stewart can’t get a gun? Who cares whether she can get a gun? What about the others? What about the convicted murderers or those convicted of violent crimes?

After a certain number of DUIs people do lose their license. Permanently.

@Hypocrisy_Central You know that felons can get their gun rights restored, right? It’s not always the easiest process to get through, and it varies from state to state. But as a non-violent felon with homes in multiple states, it would be relatively straightforward for Martha Stewart to get herself a gun (assuming she doesn’t want to just hire a bodyguard).

^^ After a certain number of DUIs people do lose their license.
Why give them more than one chance to plow someone down? It is a privilege, not a right to have a license, yet it is treated with more reverence than an actual right, go figure.

I had never heard of restricting smoking in rental units until I moved to a different state. The property owners there in most every instance disallowed smoking in their rental units. I personally don’t think they should be able to but that was out West where things are a bit wacky. A rental is the right to possess and legal activities shouldn’t be disallowed in my opinion. I can see it is office space more than residential space. I don’t smoke but do not like such restriction on it.

Reading these responses and thinking about this issue, I wonder if there are any hotels that allow smoking in certain rooms.

I don’t smoke and never smoked.

@jca There are, in some states, hotel rooms designated for smoking. They usually have their own corridor, and the whole hall stinks to high heaven.

Someone was off-gassing tobacco smoke on the train yesterday, it was making me nauseous.

@zenvelo: What does off-gassing mean?

@jca That is the release of chemicals that have been absorbed by bodies and by clothing. People who smoke have chemicals impregnated into their clothes and their upholstery (and the plaster in their walls), and it is released even if the person hasn’t smoked for a bit.

So many chemicals cause this. I used to swim at a pool that was heavily chlorinated. A few days (and several showers ) later, I’d be in dance class and realize there were chlorine coming out of my skin.

Always nasty, whether it’s smoke, garlic or chlorine.

@jca Yeah. Here in Kansas some hotels / motels have rooms where smoking is allowed. I don’t care for them though. I much prefer a motel room with an exterior entrance / exit, where I can step out side to smoke.

I travel with a smoker, and I can tell you first hand that you can smell the smoking floor when you reach it, unless the hotel is brand new.
I’m always amazed when they think they can have smoking rooms on the ground floor. That’s just stupid.

I’m amazed they think they can have ANY smoking rooms within a connected area.

I wouldn’t stay in a hotel that has smoking rooms.

I’m actually in a resort right now (a Wyndham resort) and I am sitting on the balcony off of my living room. I smelled cigarette smoke and I looked around to see where it was coming from. I see the people two floors below are smoking off of their balcony. I called Guest Services (aka the front desk) and they said they try to encourage people to smoke in the parking lot but people are allowed to smoke off the balcony. I am not pissed but I am somewhat annoyed that I am sitting here enjoying the nice weather and fresh air and because someone needs their cigarettes I have to smell it.

Do you have a health issue that precludes exposure to cigarette smoke, @jca?

Otherwise I’m at the Wyndham desk listening to you bitch about the wood smoke from the Cracker Barrel across the street.

Honestly. I can’t take wood smoke.
Flares my sinuses, or something. I avoid Cracker Barrel restaurants. “Wood Fired” restaurants in general.

Cigarette smoke 2 floors down?

GAL?

@ibstubro smoke from a balcony two floors down means it is blowing in your face from twenty feet away. That’s obnoxious.

I can smell smoke from someone two blocks away when walking to work. The prevailing winds are pretty consistent in downtown San Francisco. So now I take a different route so I can avoid the woman who smokes every morning.

@ibstubro Your complaint is so true. A bakery in our area was shut down because of the smell that came out of their business. It was a large bakery, not just the neighborhood business.

I used to love the smell when I drove by, but I didn’t realize how it was polluting the air.

@ibstubro: No, no health issue that precludes me from smelling cigarette smoke, but since I don’t smoke, I don’t relish the idea of having cigarette smoke wafting onto me, making me breathe it and making me smell like it. This resort is in the middle of the woods and near a mountain, so there’s no Cracker Barrel anywhere in the vicinity. If there was a barbecue going somewhere (which there wasn’t but it could be a possibility since it’s summer), that is a pleasant smell, whereas cigarette smoke stinks.

Like @zenvelo said, it was blowing in my face from 20 feet down.

At my daughter’s school (a no smoking campus btw), there’s a maintenance man that smokes on the loading dock which is outside the cafeteria’s exterior door. When I pick my daughter up from the after-school program, the maintenance man is having his cigarette, which means we’re walking past his smoke. I never said anything, because I figure if he gets away with it, and it’s his little pleasure at break time, and we’re only walking through for about two minutes total (the minute it takes me to go into the building and ditto for the return), then I’m not going to rat on him. However, my mom picked my daughter up once and remarked to me that my daughter’s hair smelled like cigarette smoke. That’s an example of how a smoker has no clue how their smoking affects people in ways they probably don’t even think about.

@ibstubro: As far as front desk staff at the Wyndham listening to people complain about things, I’m sure my complaining about smokers was something they’ve heard before.

Personally I cannot stand perfume. The smell of it makes me slightly ill, and if someone’s doused themselves in it (as people often do) it can trigger headaches for me and I can taste it for hours afterward. Yet I’m not calling for perfume to be outlawed, I’m not complaining to management of establishments I go to and I’m not going to ring up the front desk at hotels I stay in to complain to people who couldn’t do anything about it anyway. Because I understand that part of living in society means that I will sometimes have to tolerate other people doing things that inconvenience or annoy me.

@Darth_Algar: When I called the front desk, I was unaware that smoking is allowed on the balconies. You are correct, living in society means that sometimes we do have to tolerate other people doing things that inconvenience or annoy us, but if smoke were not an issue, it wouldn’t be outlawed in the majority of public places. If you feel that cigarette smoking should not be outlawed, you should contact your politicians to discuss.

@jca a whiff of cigarette smoke, outside, from 20 feet away is not going to cause you to smell like smoke, just like driving past a bakery with those wonderful smells is not going to cause you to smell like baking bread.

@Yarnlady, how do the figure the smell was “pollution”? If I bake bread, or fry chicken in my house, am I polluting the air?

@Dutchess_III @jca did not describe a “whiff”, she described people actively smoking. If you are in a continual stream of smoke, you will smell like it.

It was outside. Unless it was a perfectly calm day there is no “stream” of smoke. It blows hither and yon, sometime reaching her nose. It’s not like sitting in front of a smokey campfire for a couple of hours,where the smoke wraps around you from head to toe when the wind shifts.

You have to be really immersed in cigarette smoke, in a closed space for a while, to actually smell like cigarettes.

Driving over an already dead skunk, and OMG that smell! You have to roll down the windows. Doesn’t mean you’re going to smell like skunk for the rest of the day.

@Dutchess_III Do you smoke? You mention stepping outside motel rooms to smoke. I think you are trying to justify your smoking outside, while I am telling you it stinks and makes other things stink.

I do smoke. I just finished an experiment on my back deck, with this q in mind. It’s breezy out, but by no means windy. The smoke never rose straight up in a steady stream. It blew and swirled left and right (mostly right) and was completely dissipated within 5 feet. That isn’t to say that someone 20 feel away, and down wind, wouldn’t catch the occasional few hundred molecules and smell it. Our noses are very sensitive, but that’s a far cry from being “immersed in a steady stream of smoke.” It isn’t a forest fire for crying out loud.

Besides, if there was a steady stream of smoke going straight up, how did it get past the floor of her balcony, the roof of the balcony below?

She caught an occasional whiff. Not enough for the smell to start clinging to her clothes. That’s just ridiculous.

Yes, I step outside to smoke because smoking in the room causes the smoke to get trapped in the room with no place else to go, and then it starts settling and seeping into clothes and bedding.

If I catch a whiff of new mown grass, am I going to smell like new mown grass?

@Dutchess_III: It got past the balconies because they were standing with their hands hanging over the railings. When I looked down, I could see their hands dangling the cigarettes. If it took them ten minutes to smoke their cigarette, that was enough time for the smoke to come straight up, no breeze. It was a still day so there was no breeze, or very little breeze. It’s not that I thought that I’d come in smelling like smoke, it’s more that I didn’t want to sit outside in this pretty mountain resort and breathe smoke. In my post about the issue, I didn’t talk about smelling like smoke. I talked about smelling it, breathing it.

When I talked about my daughter smelling like smoke, it’s because the maintenance man smokes right outside the door that we come out of, so we are walking through a gauntlet of smoke. I never smelled her smelling smoky but if my mom caught a whiff of it on my daughter’s hair or clothes, the only place daughter could have been exposed to smoke was from the maintenance man.

@Dutchess_III , not everyone has equally sensitive scent-receptors. I’ve yet to meet an active smoker who could smell odors anything like what non-smokers can pick up.

Likewise the alcoholic who can’t smell the cheep beer on his own sweat, or the Italian chef who has no idea he reeks of garlic, or the teenage boy with his own body odour, or the crazy cat lady who seemingly bathes in urine.

When you’re immersed in the same stink all day long, you stop noticing it.

@jca “but if smoke were not an issue, it wouldn’t be outlawed in the majority of public places. If you feel that cigarette smoking should not be outlawed, you should contact your politicians to discuss.”

For one, I did not state that cigarette smoke is not an issue. It is. So are lots of other things. Two, I do not disagree with smoking bans in certain public areas, particularly indoors. In fact, I quite agree with them (although I do think the business owner should have the legal option to allow smoking areas so long as they comply with certain regulations. Thus, there is nothing for me to discuss with my representatives, nor is it relevant.

There’s lots of shit in the air that reeks and causes issues for someone or another. Yet, for some reason the only thing folks seem to blow up into a big deal is cigarette smoke. That might have been understandable decades ago, when people could smoke willy-nilly anywhere they please. But current regulations deal with the issue well enough. Plus it’s an activity that’s grown incredibly out of fashion (and more so with each passing year). I honestly can’t recall the last time I saw anyone smoking in public (indoors or outdoors).

I think that it is long past time – maybe too late, in fact, to save our current society – for us to question the efficacy of law and strict legality to determine, shape and control the good society. That is, the idea that because a majority doesn’t like some things or has determined – in a very general way – that the hazards of the thing outweigh the benefits that it may provide, therefore legal sanctions need to be applied and punishment meted out for “violation” of the rule.

I’m drawn to the comment that @jca made that “if smoke were not an issue, it wouldn’t be outlawed in the majority of public places”. Well, to cite some serious examples – even if extreme in comparison to this topic – at one time it was illegal for American citizens of Japanese ancestry to own property, to operate businesses, or simply to live in proximity to the Pacific Coast of the United States, and a worse example, of course, was the prohibition upon pain of death to be Jewish in Europe. Law isn’t right just because it’s made, and even if a majority of people applaud it. Likewise, it doesn’t fix problems. It certainly doesn’t make places better to live in all by itself.

Obviously, we can all point to some wrongs in the world and say, for example, that “Surely murder should be outlawed!” And the unthinking response from most is that of course it must be, we can’t have people murdering each other on a whim! But… it’s not so simple if you take some time to think about it. Because sometimes “murder” is clearly condoned, even applauded and celebrated. We give soldiers medals for it. We train bomber pilots to do it coldly, with precision, en masse, in hugely expensive planes, killing people they can’t even see, and we expect them to “do their duty” when the time comes. We hold up as heroes children who “murder” home intruders who threaten their families with criminal intent. So the restrictions against killing humans are certainly not absolute, which leads us to create laws to determine what kinds of homicide are permitted and which kinds are prohibited, and the gradations of homicide, from the kinds that are applauded and awarded medals to the kinds that involve defense of self and others… to the kinds we generally frown upon: those that happen through negligence, drunken rage… or premeditated murder for monetary gain or revenge. Those legal distinctions help us to determine “objectively” when to celebrate, when to condone without actual celebration, and when to punish, and approximately how much, because not even every illegitimate killing is equal to every other, either.

When we get down to it, all law is based upon a premise that it can be ultimately used to justify a police killing of a person who flatly and persistently refuses to obey the law. So when a guy tries to cheat tax authorities in a very small-time way by selling loose (untaxed) cigarettes on a public street and won’t stop when commanded to by police, they have the authority – the duty, in fact, under our legal code and rules – to arrest him for the continued refusal to obey, and if his death is a result (even if it’s from a heart attack, and not direct action by the cops), then the legal response is a sort of “He had it coming; he was breaking the law.” Clearly that’s an extreme example; most laws are made to compel with more and more gradual use of force and threat of force so that the violator ceases his “misbehavior” before lethal force is employed. But the threat of lethal force is always there in enforcement. Always.

And that’s why I ultimately come down on the side of making various kinds of not-directly-lethal behavior not-illegal. I don’t like smoking. I also don’t like perfume any more than @Darth_Algar has expressed his antipathy for it. I don’t like loud noises in the street by my house, either. In my fantasies sometimes I dream of mounting a machine gun turret outside my living room to take out intentionally loud motorcyclists – and litterers – and I am not shy about displaying my displeasure with those people from time to time. So, I would like them to change their behavior (or die; that wouldn’t bother me too much, either), but if I’m not about to kill them myself – and aside from my sometimes rich fantasy life, I’m really not ready for that yet – then I don’t expect anyone to do it on my behalf, either.

As @Darth_Algar says very well (although not in these exact words), part of the price of living in civilized, free and polite society means sometimes (maybe even more often than not) tolerating the things that other people do which inconvenience or annoy us.

@Dutchess_III The bakery pollution could have been the massive amount of smoke pouring out of the plant. The smell might have been just a pleasant by-product.

For an odor to exist, there must be something in the air for our senses to detect. It can exist in any concentration which we detect as pleasant or intolerable depending on our individual sensitivity.

Cigarette smoke and strong cologne give me an instant headache and sore throat. It can make me feel ill for an entire day if I’m exposed to it long enough. I’d definitely raise a stink if I paid for a room at a nice hotel and couldn’t enjoy my balcony because someone below me needs their cancer fix.

fyi- I’m a former smoker. I quit 13 years ago.

I’m trying to think of what “smoke” comes out of a bakery @YARNLADY. I used to drive by one everyday on my way to work. I never saw massive amounts of “smoke.”
The only time I get smoke, when I bake, is when I burn the stuff.

@jonsblond I understand. But if if bothers someone the much, they they need to check with the hotel on smoking policy before they make reservations.

When someone does something that I find very annoying, I usually find a way to politely ask them to stop. 90% of the time people have no problem with it.
This silent, passive/aggressive fuming doesn’t help anything. Why couldn’t you (or whomever) just go down and talk with them. Introduce your self, “Hi, I’m Yarnlady and I’m really allergic to smoke. Could you move a few feet down wind of the balcony when you smoke?” They’d probably acquiesce with no problem, especially in a hotel of the caliber she said it was.

When I went to K-State, at a certain time every day I’d go to the student union and watch MASH before this one class. Smoking was allowed inside in those days (late 70s). I selected a chair next to one of the several tall ashtrays they had scattered about, and lit up.
When I took my first puff, this guy in front of me turned around and gave me a really dirty look, then he started fanning himself with a notebook.
I immediately put the cigarette out. But he didn’t even notice. He just kept fanning and fanning himself to make his displeasure known. He fanned himself in outrage for 15 minutes, and I wasn’t even smoking.
After the show we both got up to leave and I caught his attention and indicated the virtually unsmoked cigarette in the ash tray. He became angry at that point, and stomped off.
If he’d just politely said something, he could have avoided making a fool out of himself.

Moving a few feet isn’t going to help. I would ask for another room, then not visit that hotel again.

Once you put your cigarette out the smoke doesn’t automatically go away. It lingers for a very long time. You are a smoker so you don’t notice @Dutchess.

@Dutchess_III Yes, you put the cigarette out promptly, good on you. But it still stank. If you had pointed out your stub to me, I would have been angry too.

And quit justifying your stinky habit by calling people passive aggressive. Smokers are generally belligerent towards anyone that criticizes their smoking. If @jca went and walked to that room and told them that, chances are they would have said, “stay off the balcony”. Most hotles do not want guests confronting each other, and prefer the guest to call the front desk.

And why should I or @jca need to go knock on a stranger’s door? Why doesn’t the smoker ask permission of everyone else in the hotel? (yes, that would be silly bit I am making a point).

A few feet downwind when you’re outside would certainly help, @jonsblond. The wind is blowing from the west, the smoke will go west. It’s physics.

I didn’t say go knock on anyone’s door. I said to down there while they were smoking and introduce yourself. Take some polite action.

I’m sure they didn’t realize that Yarnlady (or @jca or whomever it was) was on the balcony above them. Even if they did, they probably wouldn’t think anything about it, not realizing the smoke was reaching that far. Nothing wrong with bringing things to people’s attention in a friendly manner, rather than pouting and expecting them to read your mind, or shooting them silent, dirty looks to get your point across.

@Dutchess_III That is when you call the front desk. Don’t go confronting people and don’t stew in your room. Take action.

The front desk does not want people confronting each other, I’m sure. Even though it might not be termed “a confrontation” but if I politely said something and they impolitely responded, then there’s an argument. Whenever one is unhappy in a hotel, the proper thing to do is tell management. Once the hotel told me smoking on balconies is allowed, I knew I didn’t have a leg to stand on.

In somewhat related events, in the Philippines, President Duterte has declared open season on criminals.
You can literally murder anyone who you suspect of being a “drug dealer”, without repercussions and without trial.
Not saying we need to adopt this policy 1:1, but….

For the love of gourd.

Chripes. Let it go?
Secondhand smoke.

No one is allowed to smoke in my house