Smoke-Free Apartment Resolution Heads To A Vote Monday

BAYSIDE, QUEENS — Smoking indoors could soon be a thing of the past for apartment dwellers in Queens.

The Queens Borough Board, which is comprised of all the City Council members and Community Board chairpeople in Queens, will vote Monday on a long-time resolution that aims to eventually eliminate smoking in borough-wide apartment buildings and multi-unit housing.

As proposed, the resolution, which would be advisory and non-binding even if approved by the board, would call on private landlords to transition their units to smoke-free policies.

Supporters of the resolution, many of whom are based in Bayside, have been trying to ban indoor apartment smoking for years — with varying results.

In 2018, a group of neighbors founded the Bayside Smokefree Housing Alliance, which has reportedly helped most of Queens' community boards adopt similar resolutions for their neighborhoods. Two of the groups members, Phil Konigsberg and Eileen Miller, will be at Monday's meeting.

As a Council Member, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards supported efforts to make NYCHA smoke-free; a policy that ultimately came to fruition in 2018 under a federal government resolution.

Enforcement, though, has proved to be more challenging in NYCHA, Richards acknowledged during a February discussion about the proposed smoke-free resolution.

And, even in neighborhoods where similar resolutions have been passed, not all neighbors are pleased.

Vincent Arcuri, Chairman of Community Board 5 (which passed a smoke-free resolution in 2016) for instance, said that the resolution facing the Queens Borough Board poses an issue for co-ops.

"Each one of those is seen as a private home," Arcuri said, according to the Queens Chronicle. "And the government should not be telling us what we can or cannot do in our private home. The next thing is the blowback if this thing went to court."

Arcuri, however, said he supports mandating smoke-free policies in city housing, and encouraging building owners to do the same.

The resolution will head to a vote during a public Queens Borough Board Meeting, which kicks off at 5:30 p.m. on Monday May 9. Get more details about how to watch here.