Neighbor Turns On Neighbor Over Secondhand Smoke

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We already knew that some city landlords have been prohibiting tenants from smoking inside their apartments because of the pervasiveness and dangers of second-hand smoke—but what happens when you're allowed to smoke in your apartment, go out of your way to not disturb your neighbors with it, and you still get sued? Upper East Side cigar smoker Harry Dale is in such a situation. He's being sued by his neighbors Russell and Amanda Poses, despite truly trying his best to not disturb them with his smoke: "Oh, you're kidding me...[Russell] says his son has asthma. The amount of secondhand smoke that child has been exposed to from my cigars is minimal. The exhaust from the city buses is worse."

Dale says the argument has been going for more than a year: "I thought we rectified it. The Poses are absolutely unreasonable." Dale, whose wife died last year of a stroke, claims that he takes most of his smoke breaks outside, uses three air cleaners in his third-floor co-op and even hired a specialist to try to seal off his apartment. But the Poses say that Dale has been "maliciously" and "spitefully" trying to smoke them out, and that their two young children have lost sleep, suffered headaches, chest pains, and respiratory ailments. "It's pungent enough that you can't eat dinner. I've got two children, and I couldn't let them in their own playroom," said Russell Poses.

In 2006, a Manhattan judge ruled that secondhand smoke is a breach of the "warrant of habitability," a provision of state law that says tenants are entitled to a "livable, safe and sanitary" apartment. The way things are going, you won't be able to smoke in your apartment, pedestrian plazas, or cigar bars, and who'd want that?

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By Ben Yakas in News on January 16, 2011 2:06 PM

Comments [rss]

PhotoR

The smoke is probably going out an exhaust vent and blowing into the neighbor's apartment thru a leaky window or unsealed patch in the wall. They probably should get THEIR apartment sealed if they have issues with smells/smoke in NYC. My apartment gets COVERED in dust whenever I open the windows in the summer for "fresh air". I was thinking about suing all the drivers who kick up that dust outside with their selfish "cars".

taracorinne

If the guy can prove that his smoke is not coming through the complainer's apartment after all the air-filters and sealants he's used, he's free and clear to smoke to his heart's content without fear of being sued and losing.

random transplant

Considering how heavily taxed smoking is in New York City and how much tobacco is sold & consumed, I don't really think its fair to sue someone for the legal consumption of something in their own home. Smoke alarms detect carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. If the smoke alarm isn't going off, suing the neighbor seems like more of a "warranty of habitability" breech than anything else.

Christopher Malone

I say it's on the family. I'm not a smoker and definitely not a fan of wafting smoke of any kind, but at least the cigar-aficionado has tried to make compromises. What has the family done beside complain and sue (though I wonder what kind of arguments these people have had in the year leading up to this)? If they don't want smoke near their children then perhaps they should move to a city that doesn't stack apartments between thin veneers of dry wall or move to a building with better conditions (who moved to the building first?). Anyway, cigar-guy probably just wants to be left alone since his wife's passing and smoke his cigars in peace. And what's wrong with that?

canofpeas

The tenant below me is a smoker and the smoke comes up through the floorboards. In a word, disgusting.

ganghiscon

People smoke in my building hallways every night and it drives me nuts. I'm all for banning smoking in apartment buildings.

hotguy

Me too
Just report them to the landlord
Smoking in the hallways is definitely prohibited by fdny
In the qpartment is up to the landlord to enforce his own times
So start taking names and give to the NYC doh
And the landlord
The doh is supposed to visit if you make a report
Then the person will get a ticket
Fire marshals can give tickets too
I called mangy times and many tennis got fined and evicted

JohnnyBates

Smoke is like water, it finds a way in. It's his disgusting habit and therefore incumbent upon him to do it in a place where it doesn't invade his neighbors' homes. The right to not breathe smoke in your own home trumps anyone else's right to smoke in their apartment as far as I'm concerned.