All across the city, collaborations among community organizations, local businesses, health care providers, and most importantly everyday New Yorkers who want to have healthier communities have been doing amazing work to make our city a healthier place for everyone.
With that in mind, we are featuring some of the exciting work that community leaders are doing to promote health. We hope that the following video inspires you to adopt similar work in your own communities or to find other ways that you can make New York City healthier and more equitable for everyone. We had many problems with the smoke seeping into the apartments.
Secondhand smoke is dangerous, it’s bad for us. They thought they were going to get sick from secondhand smoke and it motivated most of us. And the board decided to take an initiative to see if we could get a no smoking policy here in North Shore Towers.
We had to gear up because we had to amend the proprietary lease by getting two thirds of the outstanding shares to vote for it. I chaired the committee. I had 50 people working with me. I said, “Do you ever smell the food cooking in another apartment?”
They said, “Yes, all the time. Frequently.” I said, “Well when there’s smoke, someone’s smoking, do you tend to smell that too?” They said, “Yes.” And that brought that up as secondhand smoke, which is extremely dangerous. Educate the people where they live.
We had a wonderful team come in and talk to anyone that wanted to come and we filled this room with people. And I think that had a big impact. And people then came to a recognition that it’s important to be considerate of others’ health and their own health. Every shareholder had a vote. We voted and the initiative passed. This affects 3,000 people who live here.
And these people that worked with me were able to engage their neighbors and talk to them on a one-to-one basis to tell them the necessity of doing this. When we moved in here, the fact that there was a non-smoking initiative was important to us. It was very comforting for us to know that we wouldn’t be exposed to secondhand smoke.
That people have picked up on what we’ve done has been a tremendous motivation for a lot of boards throughout the county and the city. So I think we were trend makers really. North Shore Towers is a premier community in New York City, New York State, and possibly the country for having done this.
So I, as a member of the board, I, as a member of the community, I’m so proud of our neighbors. Thank you for your interest in Take Care New York 2020. The city’s blueprint for improving the health of all New Yorkers and advancing health equity across the city.
