Smoking in multi-unit housing will be prohibited under an extension of Manhattan Beach’s smoking ban that received its first reading Tuesday night.
Smoking was banned throughout the city in July last year. At its August 18 meeting, council asked staff to draft the amendment to include e-cigarettes and smoking in both common and private areas in housing with three or more units.
The council also asked staff to create a tobacco retail licensing program. That legislation will be presented in October.
The extension of the ban is scheduled for final approval on Oct. 6. If passed, the city will join other cities such as Santa Monica and Culver City with similar regulations. The law would go into effect in November, but it wouldn’t start to be enforced until May 2017. This would give city staff time to do the necessary outreach. It would also allow landlords time to comply.
Under the proposed law, the city can compel landlords to put up the proper signage and provide notification in leases. As long as those requirements are met, the city can’t punish landlords who don’t enforce the rules or residents of multi-family housing who smoke.
If a resident complained about a neighbor smoking but the landlord didn’t remediate the problem, the resident’s only option would be to file a civil suit against his neighbor, Environmental Programs Manager Sona Coffee said. This process was consistent with other cities, she said. When Councilmember Wayne Powell asked if they could increase enforcement, Coffee said they could, although she didn’t suggest it because of limited staff resources.
Councilmembers Tony D’Errico and David Lesser said they thought the extension was unfair to smokers in multi-unit residences. Due to the dense housing in Manhattan Beach, smoke could just as easily travel from a one-family home, they said. If one apartment didn’t share ventilation with another, its inhabitant should be able to smoke, or they would be creating a “double standard,” Lesser said.
D’Errico and Lesser also criticized the law’s enforcement mechanism.
“We’re creating, in my mind, an unenforceable ordinance,” said D’Errico. “We just heard they’re not going to enforce it, basically. It will pit neighbor against neighbor.”
Powell and Mayor Mark Burton disagreed with their colleagues.
Powell said smoke coming from single-family residences wasn’t as much of an issue due to setback requirements.
Burton refuted D’Errico’s suggestion that someone could smoke in a multi-unit residence without affecting his neighbors.
“When someone smokes in a multi-family unit, it impacts everybody,” he said. ER
