Stubbed Out: Related Companies to Ban Smokers From Six Residential Buildings, Including LEED Gold Tribeca Green

New York's smokers lobby is nowhere near as powerful as, say, the over-the-counter derivatives lobby or bluefin tuna fishery-collapsing industry or whatever, and the city's six-year old ban on smoking in bars and restaurants reflects as much. While we non-smokers who go to bars and restaurants (and concerts and anyplace else, honestly) appreciate the ban, it's hard not to feel bad for smokers sometimes, seeing them all huddled and hunted-looking like Walker Evans photos come to wheezing life, bent around their cigarettes on some January sidewalk. Other times, like for instance when you're actually in a bar or restaurant (or concert or anyplace else) it's kind of a relief. But with the news that Related Companies is planning to ban smokers from their rental properties -- which includes the LEED Gold Tribeca Green -- the issue is back in the spotlight.

Specifics are still sketchy about Related's planned ban -- which C.J. Hughes first reported in Sunday's New York Times -- although Tribeca Green is almost certainly one of the six downtown residential buildings in which the order will be put into effect. "Ban" also may not be the right word for Related's plan, exactly. "Smokers who already live in any of these buildings will not be affected," Hughes writes. "But any new renters must promise not to smoke at home, even if they continue to elsewhere." Related isn't the first entity in New York real estate to do this -- Kenbar Management's 1510 Lexington Avenue development was planned as Manhattan's first non-smoking apartment building, and Pan Am Equities instituted a similar ban at its rental properties back in 2008. But the presence of a LEED building in the mix highlighted something that I didn't know (Stephen probably did, but he's on his honeymoon) about LEED indoor environemnt standards -- buildings that bar smokers will receive no LEED points for having done so. LEED's preference for ventilation systems and dedicated smoking rooms has drawn criticism from some quarters.

Of course, smoking is not a green (or, like, good) habit in any number of ways, and second-hand smoke is a lotmore direct a way to introduce carcinogens to a building than, say, non-green finishes or carpeting. A recent study estimated that 38,000 Americans die each year from complications related to second-hand smoke, with New Yorkers more likely to be exposed to second-hand smoke due to the generalized density of NYC's living conditions. Considering the lengths to which some green buildings go to improve indoor air quality -- and considering how important indoor air quality actually is -- it's hard to argue that this ban doesn't make some sense. More stringent LEED standards on smoking, of course, are a matter for the USGBC to decide. Once again, it's hard not to feel for our cigarette-smoking friends, who will now find themselves shuffling out of their homes to smoke, but hopefully this will emerge as another reason -- besides cigarettes being implausibly bad for you -- for them to quit.