WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Board of Health on Monday learned that town meeting will be asked to outlaw smoking in most multi-family housing.

 

William Raymond of 189 Stratton Road told the board that he has submitted a citizen's petition to ask the annual town meeting to enact a bylaw that would ban smoking in apartments and condominiums except for those that are owner-occupied with up to four units.

 

"These requirements are in effect at Highland Woods, Proprietor's Field and the Meadowvale housing complex," Raymond told the board. "I'm only asking for the same protection that subsidized housing people get in the town."

 

Raymond detailed his own experience dealing with second-hand smoke in his Williamstown condo.

 

"One of my neighbors smokes cigarettes in her unit and on the deck in the summer," Raymond said. "She's a very nice person. I don't bear her any ill will. I bought her an air filter. I spent $200 to plug up the plumbing lines and electrical lines coming into my kitchen and bath. Unfortunately, the second-hand smoke still comes in."

 

The smoke is both a nuisance and a health hazard, Raymond said.

 

"If the smoke didn't come through the walls, I wouldn't care," he said. "The individual's right to do what they want in their own residence is something I respect, very, very much. I want the same rights myself.

 

"I feel the issues come down to the rights of the individual versus the rights of the community to not have their health undermined by the action of one community member. I think that's the tug-of-war that's always going to be an unstable equilibrium."

 

Raymond said he did not take his issue to the board of his homeowner's association, which he did not think would get involved in thorny issues that could pit resident against resident.

 

Instead, his research led him to U.S. Housing and Urban Development regulations on public housing that mandate smokers must stay at least 25 feet from apartment buildings.

 

Jim Wilusz of the South County Tri-Town Health Department told the board that those HUD regulations followed in the footsteps of a Berkshire County initiative decades ago to get local housing authorities to make their properties smoke-free.

 

Wilusz said he discussed the issue with Chris Banthan, an attorney with Northeastern University's Public Health Advocacy Institute.

 

"We worked for years together on smoke-free housing in Berkshire County but really focused on public subsidized housing, not so much the private," Wilusz said. "Chris and I did speak last Friday, and we're not aware of any other municipality in Massachusetts that has done this yet, but that doesn't mean there couldn't be a first."

 

Raymond agreed but cited at least one place where a smoking ban in multi-family housing has been instituted, California's Alameda County, which enacted the rule in 2022.

 

Wilusz and members of the Board of Health agreed with Raymond that such a ban would have benefits locally.

 

"I'm going on almost year 30 in tobacco control," Wilusz said. "We fight every day to protect not only young people from accessing tobacco products but to protect the general public from being subjected to second-hand smoke.

 

"From a second-hand smoke health perspective, it's not even debatable that second-hand smoke is a public health issue and creates poor outcomes."

 

Raymond told the Board of Health that it could enact an anti-smoking regulation on its own, and then he would withdraw the citizen's petition he filed to put it on the May 22 meeting warrant.

 

But the board members agreed that, while they supported the intent of his proposal, they would prefer to let the whole town consider the question.

 

"I'm happy to suggest that we officially endorse your position as a board," Devan Bartels said. "I'm not comfortable legislating as a board on this question.

 

"I think the town can do that in a democratic way at town meeting a month-and-a-half from now. I am excited about that, and I appreciate that you've brought this issue to the fore."

 

Wilusz noted that, like any bylaw passed at town meeting, it would be reviewed by the attorney general's office in Boston. He also recommended that town counsel take a look at the proposal before it goes on the warrant.

 

Monday morning's meeting previewed some of the debate the town might see leading up to a potential vote on the ban.

 

"If, in Williamstown, all housing is smoke free, where are people who smoke going to live?" James Parkinson asked Raymond. "I throw that out because it's the gist of the whole issue. I don't have an answer to that."

 

Raymond said he sympathized with smokers and noted that he had been told by recovering heroin addicts that cigarettes were a harder addiction to break than heroin. And he mentioned that people still could smoke when 25 feet outside an apartment building.

 

Wilusz agreed that Parkinson asked a valid question but offered how he would respond if asked.

 

"This is not a policy to eliminate smokers," Wilusz said. "It's a policy to eliminate smoking.

 

"While people do have rights, smoking is not a protected right. Think about when we did the public housing [ban]. We had seniors, veterans, disabled folks, people who needed assistants. A lot of those housing authorities overwhelmingly voted for their units to go smoke free."

 

Parkinson was not convinced and indicated that a proposed ban could face an uphill battle.

 

"Getting rid of smoking means getting rid of smokers," he said. "Again, you're preaching to the choir. I agree with you. But it's how do you wrestle with that issue and how do you resolve it.

 

"It would be great if we could say, 'Here's a pill, You'll never smoke again.' But it's not that easy."