Elderly Smokers displeased because Smoking Ban

Elderly inhabitants decided to start a fight against smoking ban, in order to protect the smokers’ rights which want to continue to hang American flags from their apartments and to smoke within their friends.

"HUD don’t care, housing don’t care, we’re like slaves to them", an angry Ann Musk said in opening comments to about 50 Warwick Housing Authority tenants gathered at the Meadowbrook Terrace community room.

The group is worried by the authority’s action by prohibiting smoking at all its lodging complexes, both inside individual units and anywhere on authority property, by Jan. 1, 2011. New inhabitants should accept the new conditions with any other objections.

Also the Meadowbrook tenants have been advised because of recently renovated ornaments which they will no longer be permitted to hang them, including flags. Will be accepted only flags which will be placed in a stand.

Inhabitants became angry not only because smoking and flag bans but because of many other causes. Fr example during a 45-minute organizational meeting, tenants complained that their units have not been painted, and the electrical fixtures have not been renovated and that there is mold in their apartments. Also, they complained that the authority keeps establishing new restrictions.

"They keep taking things away from us", said one of displeased inhabitant, Greene Musk. She explained that quit smoking cigarettes after a heart attack, but she knows how much smoking can mean to people.

After the meeting, Michael Lyckland, executive director of the Warwick Housing Authority, said that there is a no smoking trend for the Housing and Urban Development funded housing units across the country.

Lyckland declared that for the policy, safety and health are major reasons. But the safety and health reasons failed to fly with the tenants.

While there is no set indication, Lyckland said that if a unit is occupied for a long period it will be painted. Otherwise, he explained, as a tradition, a unit is repainted when tenants move out and before new ones move in. He declared that about 20 percent of the more than 500 city elderly housing units are repainted every year.