By James Tinley, Register Staff

MILFORD — Residents in the city’s 465 public housing units soon no longer will be able to light up in their homes.

Spurred in part by a “strong recommendation” from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Milford Redevelopment & Housing Partnership banned smoking in all parts of its buildings in a recent split vote.

“It is a smoke-free facilities policy,” Milford Housing Authority Executive Director Anthony Vasiliou said Tuesday. “It covers 100 percent of all of the property we own and operate.”

The last day current residents can light up inside their MRHP-owned house or apartment is Nov. 1. The ban takes effect immediately for anyone signing a new lease, and smoking in common areas already has been banned for more than a decade.

Smoking still will be allowed outside the buildings, but designated areas will be established if people don’t “exhibit common sense” and stay away from the entrances when they go out for a cigarette, Vasiliou said.

Vasiliou said public housing smoking bans are becoming more prevalent across the country, but particularly have taken root in the Northeast.

In supporting the ban, MRHP Chairwoman Hilary H. Holowink cited health concerns over secondhand smoke, safety surrounding accidental fires and economic reasons concerning smoke damage.

“We voted for the health benefits and the fire safety benefits and to be a good steward of state and federal money,” Holowink said Tuesday. “It takes at least twice as much money to refurbish a unit after a smoker has been living there.”

But Jack Tucciarone, tenant representative on the MRHP, said he couldn’t support a blanket smoking ban being imposed on long-term residents.

Tucciarone, a smoker, said he would have been more likely to support a more gradual phase-in that allowed existing residents to smoke. “That way people know what they’re agreeing to from the start,” Tucciarone said. Continued...

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He also would have preferred a more narrowly tailored ban for people living in town houses or other types of housing where secondhand smoke doesn’t affect neighbors.

Ray Arnold, the other commissioner to vote against the ban, said he didn’t easily arrive at his decision. “I was definitely torn,” Arnold said. “I couldn’t fathom telling people how to live in their house. That was initially my response.

“The end result: The facilities are going to be cleaner; people are going to be healthier. But I had this rare opportunity where I could let my opinion be known when there was a real personal freedom at stake,” he said.

Vasiliou, however, said he was concerned about providing residents the freedom to live in a smoke-free environment.

“What about the elderly person who has a respiratory disease or maybe a bout with cancer? ... They don’t really have many options to move. Really, the argument applies to those people,” Vasiliou said. “And the person who smokes can still smoke, they just can’t do it in the proximity of others.”

Still, John Shirback, who lives in the Alberta Jagoe Commons elderly housing complex, felt the ban amounted to a small group imposing their will on residents.

“I’m opposed to the idea that they can mandate what a person can do in their own home,” said Shirback, who doesn’t smoke. “It just isn’t right.”

A proposal to ban smoking in public housing first came before the MRHP in 2009, but languished after a 2-2 vote. It came before the MRHP again after HUD recommended banning smoking in public housing as part of its healthy communities initiative, Vasiliou said. The ban passed last week with a 3-2 vote.

Contact James Tinley at jtinley@newhavenregister.com.

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