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Workshop on Smoke-free Housing for Property Owners and Managers

Jun 02, 2014

Workshop on Smoke-free Housing for Property Owners and Managers

The American Lung Association, Live Well Sioux Falls, Rural Sioux Empire Coalition for Youth and the Sioux Empire Tobacco-Free (SET-Free) Coalition invite owners and managers of multi-unit housing properties to attend a workshop on Thursday, June 26, to learn how to implement property-wide smoke free policies.

The workshop, called, A Breath of Fresh Air, will be held from 11:30 AM – 2:00 PM at the Best Western Plus Ramkota Hotel and Convention Center in Sioux Falls. Lunch is provided. Doors will open at 11:00 AM.

“Smoke-free housing is not just a growing health trend across the U.S., but also a smart business decision, considering that 8 out of 10 adults don’t smoke,” says Jill Franken, Sioux Falls Public Health Director. “While offering a smoke-free environment is the right decision for the health and well-being of residents who live in close proximity to one another, it can also have benefits to the property owner in reduced maintenance costs.”

The workshop features information on current trends around the country, legal information about implementing a smoke-free policy and resources to assist both property owners and residents.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), smoke-free policies can potentially play an important role in protecting residents from secondhand smoke (SHS), which can infiltrate from units where smoking occurs into common areas and other units where residents have adopted voluntary smoke-free home rules. This occurs through air ducts, cracks in floors and walls, stairwells, hallways, elevator shafts, plumbing, electrical lines, and open windows, among other routes. In fact, the CDC says as much as 60 percent of airflow in multi-unit housing facilities can come from other units.

As far as resident safety, smoking-related fires are the leading cause of fire deaths, and cigarettes are the leading type of smoking material involved in residential smoking fires, accounting for 87 percent of these fires.

Register for the third annual Smoke-Free Multiunit Housing workshop.  Space is limited. For more information, please contact Live Well Sioux Falls at (605) 367-8760 or livewell@siouxfalls.org.