The city’s 400,000 public housing tenants will soon be banned from smoking inside their apartments as part of a nationwide push to designate those areas smoke-free zones.
New York City Housing Authority residents are getting letters detailing the new rule set to begin July 30 — and will have to sign a lease addendum by July 16.
Under the new policy, cigarettes, cigars, pipes, and hookah pipes are prohibited “in indoor common areas, within public housing units, in administrative offices, and in outdoor areas within 25 feet of NYCHA buildings.”
The smoke-free rule was ordered in December 2016 by the Housing and Urban Development Department. HUD gave public housing agencies 18 months to enact the public health policy.
But the smoke-free push had some tenants fuming Tuesday — and arguing NYCHA has more serious problems to tackle.
“NYCHA please fix the heat and all the other repairs you’re backed up on before you start trying to trample on people’s rights!!!!!” Chris Banks posted on Facebook.
The smoking ban may also give cops a new excuse to approach and “harass” tenants in common areas, he added in a phone interview with the Daily News.
“We’ve seen how those experiences can turn into something bad with officers interacting with people in public houses,” said Banks, executive director of East New York United Concerned Citizens, a local social service provider.
NYCHA says the rule is designed “to improve indoor air quality, benefit the health of residents and staff, reduce the risk of fires, and lower overall maintenance costs.”
Two city lawmakers have already voiced concern that the rule is going into effect without a proper plan to help smokers quit.
“It’s essentially an unfunded mandate from an absentee landlord,” City Councilman Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx) told The News in January.
