No Smoking in Your Own Apartment? Santa Monica Moves Toward Such a Ban
Please explain to us how L.A.'s own version of Berkeley, a town once ruled by ultra-lefty Tom Hayden and his band of merry pranksters called Santa Monicans for Renters Rights, has turned into an Amish village where the local government is up your arse with just about everything you do there?
Helga Weber / Flickr
It was a bit of a culture shock to see the city by the sea outlaw smoking on balconies at multi-unit complexes in 2010.
Now the Santa Monica City Council is banning smoking INSIDE your own apartment. Really:
They used to call it the Republic of Santa Monica, in an exaggeration of the town's liberal leanings. Santa Monicans for Renters Rights was about holding down rent and checking development.
How far the city has come. Now it's a nanny state, plain and simple.
Fiorellaq Osbourne / Flickr
The City Council last night voted to outlaw smoking in new apartments and convert those that have been vacated into non-smoking units too. Here's the crux of the ordinance:
... It would deem the units of all new occupancies as non-smoking, including those previously designated smoking that had been vacated.
Not only that, but current apartment and condo owners would have to make all their units smoking or non-smoking and post signs warning as much.
The council went beyond those staff recommendations for the law, however, and demanded a "drop-dead date" for the conversion of all units in the city to non-smoking, reports the Santa Monica Daily Press.
The vote was preliminary, and a final decision will have to be made at a future meeting. But it looks like this is going to happen, so inhale while you can.
[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]
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