Smoking Guns And Smoking People – What’s The Difference To NYCHA?

The year was 2003 and former Mayor Mike Bloomberg – Nanny Mike, or whatever nickname you’d like to give him – banned smoking in public restaurants. You could no longer go to your favorite bar or eatery and even request a seat in the “smoking section” because Bloomy’s Smoke-Free Air Act was in full effect!

I’m not so sure that our city is cleaner or healthier – smoke-related deaths and cancers don’t seem to be decreasing all that much. Just because you can’t smoke in the bar or after your meal doesn’t mean you’re not going to go home or take a long walk for a nice long puff. Let’s get real – you’ve been cooped up in that restaurant for a good hour and you’ve got one hell of a hankerin’ to pollute your lungs!

They'll both kill you but you'll only be fined for using one!

Here’s an even bigger ban coming your way – the ban on smoking in NYCHA buildings and other housing buildings across the nation. The new ban recently made news as the biggest ban in history that would prevent residents and visitors from smoking in public housing common areas, hallways and stairwells.

If you ask me, this ban is being proposed for one of the most deadliest living environments in any state! Housing developments like NYCHA harbor gunmen, drug dealers, gangsters and derelicts who sit outside on park benches waiting to stir trouble. If you doubt my stereotypical sentiments, take a trip to any one of our local housing developments in and around Canarsie. You’re not going to see outstanding residents who care about their living conditions hanging out in the hallways at 2 in the morning. Hey – if this smoking ban goes into effect, that shady guy hanging out in the hallway taking a few puffs of his cigarette will get slapped with a frivolous fine for polluting the air. Did I mention he probably WON’T get stopped and frisked to check if he’s carrying a weapon!!!

Something just isn’t right here when officials are making a big stink about smoking in PUBLIC housing – a habit that will cost them their own lives – but not randomly checking residents who could be carrying a gun that will take SOMEONE ELSE’S life! To be honest, I’d feel a LOT safer around an elderly person smoking a cigarette in a dark Bayview Houses hallway than I would around a punk who’s hiding in the shadows outside – probably concealing a weapon in their waistband!

Putting a smoking ban into effect doesn’t do anything but benefit the city so that they can generate money from fines. Have you seen those grotesque commercials showcasing smokers who are dying – literally – and losing limbs while they cough their brains out? If the rate of smokers has decreased and the city is “healthier than it’s ever been,” why do we need public service announcements scaring the crap out of people who have no problem poisoning their lungs?

Granted, I’ve never smoked ANYTHING and I can’t stand the smell of nicotine, being a second-hand smoker isn’t something I can avoid – although I haven’t been exposed to too many smokers for long periods of time. I STILL don’t think housing officials – in any state – have the right to restrict smoking in PUBLIC buildings.

It’s one thing if you own a private house and don’t want your tenant to smoke. Maybe you just had the walls painted and the floors done – you don’t want the smell permeating into your property.

If you’ve been inside a New York City Housing building, many of them are in such deplorable condition! They’re infested with roaches and mice, and mold is growing from leaks within the walls. Why is NYCHA letting children develop asthma? Why are they allowing elevators to remain broken for days and weeks? How can NYCHA allow tenants to live in apartments where walls are literally falling apart and crumbling?

Instead, they’re worrying about someone smoking OUTSIDE their apartments – spaces they rent which are unhealthy to begin with?? Something’s wrong with this picture!!!

If the big shots want to make conditions healthier for housing residents, they need to look at the fact that they don’t care about the conditions tenants have to endure anyway! When you have to take a shower in a bathroom that looks like something out of the movie “Saw,” you’ve got bigger problems than inhaling cigarette smoke for a few minutes while going inside your building.

Gun-wielding gangsters, torture chambers – I mean bathrooms – and decaying walls are a threat to tenants in housing buildings all over. Those are just some of the quality of life problems no one can truly control – so housing officials should stop controlling their tenants! Put THAT in your pipe and DON’T smoke it – it might turn the walls another mysterious and unhealthy shade of black!