Elaine Watai remembers sitting in the laundry room of her public housing complex a few years ago when she and some friends saw babies in diapers walking around, unattended, picking discarded cigarette filters off the ground and chewing on them.
"‘Oh, my God, how gross,’ I thought," Watai said. "‘How awful.’"
Watai has lived in Jack Hall Memorial Housing in Kailua, Kona, since 1986 when her husband took a post-retirement job as the property’s resident manager. She took over his job when he died two years ago and became acutely aware of how prevalent smoking is at the housing complex.
Yet there are no containers for smokers to dispose of their butts, nor are there designated areas for smoking. Occasionally she leads group cleanups with youths, but feels stronger action is needed.
Watai wants "no smoking" signs posted. "We’re hoping to find out from here where our next step can be," she said. "That’s all we can do for now."
Five years ago Hawaii became the 14th state in the nation to ban smoking in and around businesses and public places, including within 20 feet of entrances and exits, open windows and air-intake vents.
The law does not cover smoking in the home, and public housing is exempt from rules restricting smoking on government-owned property.
But as the health dangers of secondhand smoke have become well documented and widely publicized, more people living in close quarters to smoking neighbors across the nation are complaining and in some cases filing lawsuits against offending smokers and property owners.
The Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Hawai‘i is boosting its efforts to increase the number of smoke-free housing options because so many people here live in condominiums and apartments. According to 2010 Census data, multi-unit housing comprises more than 40 percent of all housing units in Hawaii (46 percent on Oahu).
Smokers are in the minority in the isles; a 2010 Hawaii Department of Health survey indicated that 14.5 percent of residents smoke. An official with the American Lung Association in California said she doesn’t understand why landlords and property owners cater to such a small percentage of occupants.
"When you have a building that allows smoke, you’re dissuading people who don’t like smoke from entering your building," said Serena Chen, regional policy advocacy director for the association.
Chen was invited by the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Hawai‘i to speak last month to association board members, property owners and others interested in changing their condominiums or apartments to smoke-free buildings.
At this point the coalition is not pushing legislation for a statewide ban on smoking in multi-unit dwellings, but instead is working to make it happen one building at a time, said Executive Director Deborah Zysman.
"(We’re) trying to work instead on getting a few places to go smoke-free and transition it in that way," she said. "We’re not against smokers; we’re just trying to figure out how to not have people exposed to the smoke."
Zysman said the coalition knows of at least 10 condominiums or apartment buildings in the state that prohibit smoking on lanais, within units or both.
"It’s probably not an exhaustive list," she said, "but there is demand" for smoke-free housing.
MARILYN GAGEN’S 10-unit building at 2131 Fern St. near the McCully Shopping Center was just added to the list.
Residents have been prohibited from smoking in their units for as long as Gagen can remember, but she’s recently taken it a step further by banning smoking on lanais and in common areas.
"I talked to some of the tenants in the building who were smokers, and they were fine with it," she said, "especially the ones with small children."
Gagen, who is also a coalition board member, offered a six-month grace period to get smokers used to the idea or to find other accommodations, she said.
Hawaii and federal laws do not prevent landlords from banning smoking inside individual units, nor do they require "grandfathering" in current tenants who smoke.
"There’s just no special protection for the act of smoking," Chen said.
In 2006 the U.S. Surgeon General determined there is no way to fully ventilate secondhand smoke from an area because the particles are far too tiny to contain. Cancer-causing chemicals can drift into neighboring apartments through windows, shared air vents and other utility systems, electrical sockets, even the dishwasher, Chen said.
Sonya Niess, the coalition’s Maui coordinator, said she recently received a secondhand-smoke complaint from a woman living with a 3-month-old baby.
"It gets a little more real when you start looking at newborns and babies like that," Niess said.
A SURVEY of 1,500 people by the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Hawai‘i showed that 81 percent "strongly" or "moderately" agree they would buy or rent a smoke-free house or apartment instead of a place that allows smoking. And although the coalition is not proposing a smoking ban in multi-unit housing, 76 percent of those surveyed said they would "strongly" or "moderately" support such a law.
"Even a lot of smokers are either trying to quit themselves or don’t smoke in their home anymore," Zysman said.
The coalition hopes to work closely with affordable-housing providers and the Hawaii Public Housing Authority, which has 13,700 tenants, to give low-income residents more access to smoke-free housing.
Last year the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released a notice strongly encouraging public-housing authorities to initiate no-smoking policies. As of January at least 230 public housing authorities in 27 states had done just that.
Hawaii, however, is not one of them.
"It’s something that we are aware of that has been out there for some time now," said Nick Birck, chief planner for the Hawaii Public Housing Authority. "(But) it’s not something we can do without really working with the residents and the board of directors."
Zysman said offering nonsmoking housing likely is not a priority to the housing authority, which has other pressing issues.
"We’re working on our side so they view it as more of a priority," she said.
Desiree Kihano, who sits on the resident advisory board at the agency’s Palolo Homes development, said the no-smoking issue was brought up at a Nov. 4 meeting but found little backing.
"Nobody supports it," Kihano said. "It didn’t really surprise me because we did discuss that a couple years ago, (and) at that time there was no support for it, either."
Chen said she believes offering smoke-free public housing is a social-justice issue because low-income renters often have less access to smoke-free housing than traditional renters.
Pam Asuega-Keawe, who lives at the Manana Gardens multifamily affordable housing development in Pearl City, said her 2-year-old son Koali, who was diagnosed with asthma just over a year ago, inhales smoke that drifts into the family’s second-story apartment from the parking lot below.
"It’s like as if he was just smoking next to me because that’s how close the parking structure is to me," Asuega-Keawe said.
Kihano said most people aren’t bothered by smoke in her community because smokers use common courtesy and try to minimize the impact on neighbors. But she would like the issue to be investigated further.
"If anything, it should be looked into more because nobody should feel that way," she said.
Asuega-Keawe is not sure whether she will stay at Manana Gardens, but securing financing for a new home could be difficult.
"I have to look after the health and welfare for my son and husband — my family," she said.