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[Jimmy-T]

Our recent news feature about the strata block in Ashfield that banned smoking INSIDE people’s apartments certainly got people talking – all the commercial TV stations and many radio stations picked up on it.

But this is not the end of civilisation as we know it (as some would have it). In fact it’s possibly the first steps in the development of a new niche in apartment living – Clean Strata, anyone?

For it seems the Ashfield block wasn’t the first to have gone totally smoke free; a couple of other blocks emailed to say they too had smoking bans throughout their buildings … they’d just kept quiet about it.

And it’s not the Nanny State, EnviroNazism or any other stock phrases employed when we’re asked to behave in a reasonably civilised manner.

Even in a no-smoking building, you could still smoke in your apartment if it didn’t bother anyone else – because if it doesn’t bother them then they obviously don’t know you are smoking.

Doors will not be broken down to check if you are lighting up.  Sniffer dogs will not patrol the corridors trying to detect whiffs of nicotine.

And, if your smoke is a nuisance to others, you could be forced to stop smoking anyway, even in a building with no blanket ban.

The most obvious difference in non-smoking buildings is to ‘fireflies’ who smoke on their balconies because they don’t want their own apartments to stink.  Too bad if their neighbours have their windows open.

But the most significant issue is that dedicated smokers thinking of buying or renting in these buildings will know that they are not welcome.  Likewise, anyone who doesn’t want to live near smokers will know they are better protected than in most buildings.

This ‘Clean Strata’ concept could really catch on and I reckon many non-smokers would pay a premium to live in smoke-free buildings.

And if there’s a buck to be made, you can bet developers will be setting up non-smoking strata plans faster than you can strike a light.

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