Queens activist pushes for city-wide smoking ban in multi-family housing

A Queens activist is pushing local co-ops, condominiums and even City Council to adopt a smoking ban in all multi-family housing buildings in the city, Crain’s reported.

The campaign is being led by Phil Konigsberg, a vice president of the Bay Terrace Community Alliance in Bayside and a member of the neighborhood community board, who was an early advocate of other public smoking prohibitions in the city. Konigsberg has pushed for the ban in 18 buildings represented by the community alliance and especially in the 240-unit co-op complex in which he lives to no avail. As a result, he has decided the “best route to go is to get a city law to pass.” Late last year he proposed a draft resolution in the council.

While Koningsberg argues that there’s no way the toxins from cigarette smoke stay in a single apartment, Queens co-op board members counter that it’s a difficult ban to pass on an individual basis because of sensitivity people have of being told what to do in their property. [Crain’s]