Springfield Housing Authority ponders smoking restrictions

The Huber Building has all but recovered from the August fire that caused about $250,000 worth of damage.
http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20151105/NEWS02/151109681

Published November 5, 2015 in the Rutland Herald Springfield Housing Authority ponders smoking restrictions By SUSAN SMALLHEER Staff Writer SPRINGFIELD — The Huber Building has all but recovered from the August fire that caused about $250,000 worth of damage. But the Springfield Housing Authority, which administers the Huber Building and other public housing in town, may make some further restrictions on smoking as a result. The fire Aug. 21 to a fourth-floor apartment was caused by a tenant who was smoking, according to Bill Morlock, the executive director of the housing authority. While no one was seriously hurt as a result of the fire, the housing authority is working toward eliminating smoking more and more, Morlock said. He said that damage wasn’t as expensive as the state fire marshal had originally estimated at $500,000, and he said the total damage would probably come in at between $250,000 and $275,000. Most of the damage came from water, not fire, he said. “We were pretty good within a month,” he said. He said both elevators in the building had to be repaired, and water damage had to be cleaned up. And, he said, there are still some units open in the Huber building. The top two floors of the Huber Building at 80 Main St. are now designated for smokers, he said. The housing authority will discuss a revised smoking policy at its monthly meeting Monday morning. And tenants are not allowed to smoke in any public spaces in the building, nor in the front of the building. There is a designated smoking area, a gazebo, in the back of the building, said Peter Andrews, chairman of the Springfield Housing Authority. Tenants can’t smoke within 25 feet of the building, Morlock said. And at the other senior housing building in town, the Whitcomb Building, tenants are being told that once the current group of smokers leave, the building and grounds will be completely smoke free. Morlock said that at Mountain View, four of the buildings are designated non-smoking, while tenants can smoke in the other apartment buildings. And at The Maples, he said, while the housing authority has grandfathered some smoking tenants.“We don’t allow new tenants to smoke,” he said. Morlock said that a smoking ban in family housing was harder to enforce. He said of the 300 apartments the housing authority supervises, he estimated 20 to 25 people were smokers. Some people who are even allowed to smoke in their apartments, only smoke outside, he said. Andrews said he didn’t think there would be an outright ban on smoking on the authority’s various properties, but a continuing decline. “We’ve been working on restrictions for five years,” said Andrews. “We have more restrictions than we did five years ago and we’ll have more restrictions five years from now.” Other housing projects are also banning smoking, he said, including the Southview Apartments in Springfield. People threatened to move out, he said, when the ban went into place, but they didn’t. A lot of housing authorities in the state have already adopted smoking bans, he said, including Rutland and the Olde Windsor Village, a 70-unit project. The Springfield restrictions may become moot in the future, Morlock said, noting the federal housing officials were drafting legislation that would ban smoking in public housing. “It hasn’t come out yet,” he said.