Boulder County Proposes Smoking Ban Surveys For HOAs, Private Complexes

In addition to the surveys it plans for the Boulder Housing Authority-managed properties--polling residents to determine if a smoking ban is wanted, Boulder County urges private home owner associations and privately managed housing complexes to consider banning smoking through a polling mechanism. So much for private property rights--say hello to your new nanny-state overlords, aided and abetted by your neighbors:

Boulder County is considering snuffing out smoking inside Boulder Housing Authority-managed apartment, condominium and townhouse complexes — and health officials would like homeowners' associations to weigh similar bans in private buildings.

The county's public health division, along with the housing authority, distributed a 12-question survey last month to the 467 residents living in its scattered complexes, asking whether they'd support a smoking ban for every unit in their building.

If most tenants support building-wide bans, Boulder County Public Health and the Housing Authority will consider a smoking prohibition. If most tenants reject the idea, the authority probably won't, said EricAakko, the county's tobacco education coordinator.

"Most buildings aren't designed to have smokers in one area and not in the next," said Aakko, noting that 50 percent of the air in multi-unit housing complexes recirculates throughout the buildings because ventilation systems aren't equipped to filter out smoke.

"The surgeon general has been clear: There is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke."

Katie Case, who lives in a Housing Authority complex on Broadway, said she's opposed to having smoke in her house — but she also respects people's freedoms. She's particularly sensitive to the issue in the winter, when it can be too cold to smoke outside.

Mark Rosinski takes a smoke break Friday at the apartment where he is doing maintenance work. He said he would not support further smoking bans in Boulder.

"With the bar bans, if you can't smoke at your house, you can't smoke at all," Case, 23, said.

Still, because of associated health risks, Case said she'll support a building-wide ban.

"But it is getting a little invasive," she said.

Ya think?

And how about that logic--the proposal is invasive, but she'll still vote for it! So much for personal freedom on private property, if your neighbors don't like it, no smoking for you, even inside your own home! And all under the presumed veil of "democratic" polling of the HOA or housing units. With neighbors using logic like this woman, a quick puff may earn you heavy fines, and perhaps a trip to the nearest moonbat reeducation camp.

And to think, when the public area bans were first proposed, there were claims that smoking on private property would never be a target. Nanny-state creep is all the rage, especially in smoking prohibition.

Odds Ends 112107

Laying around in the queue for the past few days:

Appeals Court Asked To Overturn Smoking Ban

CU scraps joint journalism school in Pakistan

University of Colorado's personnel checks get more stringent

Pope to purge the Vatican of modern music

CU System To Be Smoke-free

Entirely smoke-free, indoors and outdoors! CU Regent Michael Carrigan is leading the charge to snuff out smoking freedom and personal responsibility throughout the entire CU system:

The University of Colorado could be the first college system in the state to go entirely smoke-free - inside and out - if CU Regent Michael Carrigan gets his way.

The measure, planned for introduction early next year after a survey on the issue goes out this week, would affect 75,000 people and would be the strictest smoke-free policy in the state.

The idea is to eventually ban smoking - and perhaps all tobacco - on nearly 2,000 acres of CU property. It would need the support of a majority of the school's nine-member governing board.

It would be the second multicampus university system in the country to make such a move.

"The university has an opportunity to be a leader in 21st-century health care, and I'm confident that 10 years from now, most campuses will have a smoking ban in effect," said Carrigan, who represents Denver.

About 25 percent of college- age students in Colorado smoke. That is higher than adults in the 25-34 age group, in which about 18 percent light up, according to a study by the Tobacco Program Evaluation Group among Colorado adults.

This week's survey will gauge the opinion of CU's 52,000 students, 20,000 staffers and 4,100 faculty members.

CU senior officials say they believe the response will be favorable toward the measure.

If so, Carrigan said he would bring the matter to his colleagues for vote next spring. It could take effect as soon as next fall.

CU's Regents have much better things to deal with than policing campuses and enforcing stifling bans on smoking. But that's ok, Carrigan has a method for dealing with student and faculty smokers:

Enforcement of the policy is still unclear, Carrigan said. He thinks peer pressure works best.

"The glowering looks from peers can be the most effective enforcement out there," he said.

Perhaps an informant system or some farcical show trials will also be used to enforce this--as one commenter put it--essentially "Maoist notion of control". Carrigan also claims to be working for the "rights of the majority" (video), but doesn't that conflict with CU's diversity mantra that not only encourages but enforces the views of even the tiniest minority?

Last time we checked it was that other vice of young and old--alcohol--that has consistently registered a more appalling record of hazard to the health of students, faculty and the community and no one, including us, has called for banning the consumption of alcohol.

Is smoking a nuisance? Sure, to the people who either don't smoke or the rabid ex-smokers who constantly remind everyone they know about the offensive nature of the habit. I don't smoke, though I do enjoy a cigar 3-4 times a year, usually for holidays and my birthday.

Author and Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi recently penned a book on what he calls the "Nanny State: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists, and other Boneheaded Bureaucrats are Turning America into a Nation of Children". In attempting to police the smoking habits of the state's largest campus system, Carrigan is telling the students (and faculty) that they can't be trusted to make their own decisions, and that it is the administration and the state's responsibility to regulate their lives and prevent them from using, outdoors, a legal and taxed product. So much for personal responsibility, let alone personal choice.

Allowing the moonbat mini-emperors and nanny statists to use the "non-smokers' veto" in any other situation--banning any legal act that one doesn't approve of--would be ridiculed for the assault on personal freedom that it represents at its core. If these people were intellectually coherent or honest, they would ban tobacco products altogether, rather than going about it peacemeal. But the regulatory moonbats enjoy control and the punitive taxes they place on tobacco consumption. Get the "nose in the tent" by banning smoking indoors, then in all public places, and now finally, outdoors as well at CU campuses.

It's not going to be long before the ban reaches state-wide. So much for those recent pro-marijuana initiatives (and CU's annual 4/20 potfest)--you won't be busted 'cuz its weed, but you will be for lighting up!