A local non-smoking advocacy group is encouraging Ottawa landlords to adopt policies that will make their buildings smoke free.
Ottawa residents have very few smoke-free options for accommodation, said Ottawa Council on Smoking and Health president Pippa Beck.
“We’re not asking governments to force landlords,” said Beck. “We want there to be more choice in the marketplace.”
This week is National Non-Smoking Week, but according to Beck, Canada is about three years behind the United States, which offers tens of thousands of smoke-free units.
“It’s still emerging here,” said Beck. “The buildings are hard for people to find. There’s no list available.”
Here in Ottawa, landlords of smaller multi-unit buildings are more likely than landlords of big buildings to go smoke-free.
“Developers can legally declare their new building 100 per cent smoke-free from the outset,” Beck said.
