This week
in Dusseldorf, Germany, Friedhelm Adolfs an old man of 68 years was dislodged
from the apartment where he lived rented for 40 years, the cause: his neighbors
complained that the old man smoked so much that cigarette smoke polluted the
small apartment building where he lived.
This case
has come to attract the public. Germany is one of the European countries with
the highest rate of smoking, about 65% of the population smoke. Even so have
recently been implemented restrictions to reduce and finally eradicate the
tobacco smoke in public places, government and private shared spaces such as
offices, restaurants, clubs and others. But that these same restrictions and
penalties can be applied for smoking in the privacy of home is not covered by
any law, and this case sets a precedent.
Was not
easy getting the order to evict Adolfs from the department, but the owner and
the neighbors involved reported that the man had presumably sealed the air
vents and external windows of it, which caused the cigarette smoke go out the
door and flooded the halls of property getting to strongly affect the health of
his neighbors. Adolfs could prove in court that he did no such thing, the
department simply did not have good ventilation.
In terms of
the rights of individuals this situation is quite interesting: on the one hand
we have a man, claiming that he was not committing any crime because he smoked
at home, not in public or shared spaces. Not smoked in public areas of the
property or in the hallways, and in his lease any rule prohibiting smoking in
the property was not established. On the other side are their neighbors, who
claim, rightly, having to live in an environment contaminated with tobacco
smoke. So what would be fair to do in a case like this?
The truth
is that Adolfs will now, in his advanced age, to find a new apartment, a nothing
easy task for a man of his age. Maybe Adolfs need someone to talk him about
disposable smokeless cigarettes. Probably would have avoided this hard time,
plus have saved so many annoying and possible health problems to his neighbors. In these times that the cities to us keep getting smaller and we are
obliged to share our spaces and our smoke with others, it becomes necessary to
assign, but should be considered as much as being with others, safety health
and welfare, as in ours, and our comfort.
Finally,
thanks to technology both, smokers and those around him, have a choice to
continue to live together without bothering with each other: the e cigs. Our white
clouds e cigs possibly can help not only leave the tobacco definitely, maybe them
make us more sociable, surely Adolfs will look like as a good neighbor without
the tobacco smoke coming out of his department.