Unit owner barred from smoking on their balcony and the decision that will reverberate through Qld, experts say

[Meesterjojo]

Don't blame the upstairs neighbor. That stuff is foul if you're not a smoker. Worse is indoor smokers because it invariably finds its way up through the walls. 

Shouldn't own a condo like that as a smoker anyway. Social responsibility and all that. Being respected towards one's neighbors. 

At the very least have a smoke elimination system installed. When they built the new city hall I'm Houston back in the 90s they had such a system installed for one councils person because he loved his cigars. 

I'm not even sure why this is debated. Noone here would blow smoke on someone else. Why would we think it's acceptable to expose non smokers to our vice?

[BrightonCorgi]

Soon, authorities will want to re-home children of smokers or make smokers register in a national database.  Next they'll go after the overweight as tobacco users are being vanquished.

 

[Fosgate]

When I used to smoke cigarettes I once lived in a trendy 3 story Apt complex shortly after leaving the Army. Following army tradition I always had a coffee can with water in it to extinguish my cigarettes and if I was out and about I would roll the lit cherry out with my fingers and pocket the butt until I found a trash can. Many people just tossed them off their balconies and I remember letters being sent out to all tenants to stop doing that. A few months before I moved out there was a fire originating from the balcony on a bottom unit exterior and ran all the way up the side of the building but fire crews managed to get to it and put it out before any major damage occurred. Cause of fire on that one was a smokers can. A few weeks later another unit this time a 2nd floor until had an exterior fire again from cigarettes, get out of control and take out about 1/4 of the 2nd and 3rd floor before fire crews got it contained. After that management prohibited smoking outdoors and even banned grills or face eviction. 

Years later when I was a volunteer fire fighter it was pretty common to track down smokers cans or lit cigarettes as the source of fires. 

Today, I have a cousin that does insurance risk evaluations for a major commercial insurance company. I remember him talking about how he has to non-renew a policy because the owner did not heed the first warning about BBQ grills on the decks of an apartment complex when they first wrote the business. He mentioned he had driven by it recently and said he saw there were still grills out there and they pretty much ignored the insurance companies request. I thought it was odd until I remembered my own apartment complex in the day. He then said absolutely no smokers cans, or charcoal grills. If they see one they simply wont write the new business. For propane they give them a year to get rid of them and if they are still present when they do a drive by, they drop them.