Wednesday 19 January 2011

Best Of Luck With That

Call that a plan?

In hysterically heroic style, an American family have jumped on the anti-smoker bandwagon and decided to try it on by pursuing trailer park style compo.

Family sues cigar-smoking neighbor over secondhand smoke

An Upper East Side cigar smoker said he's done everything to appease the family next door that insists he's generating so much secondhand smoke that it's seeping into their apartment and making life a living hell.

Harry Dale takes most of his smoke breaks outside, uses three air cleaners in his third-floor co-op and even hired a specialist to try to seal off his apartment from that of Russell and Amanda Poses.

The Poses family, who live in apartment 3A, claim the odors and smoke coming from 3G are so strong, they've been practically evicted from their two-bedroom co-op at 501 E. 79th St., a 20-story doorman building where apartments go for $2 million.

"It's pungent enough that you can't eat dinner. I've got two children, and I couldn't let them in their own playroom," said Russell Poses.

The Wall Street equities trader and his wife, who runs her own gift-basket business, are asking for $500,000 in damages for each member of the family.
Half a mill each ... for a smell?

I'd advise Mr Dale to quote the Labate case, strike up a stogie coupled with a Hannibal Smith smile, and tell them to fuck right off.

But this case goes deeper than that if one thinks about it. Should the Poses succeed in their claim, the same precedent could be used in New York if someone objects to their neighbour's choice of cuisine, their occasional balcony barbecues, or liking for joss sticks.

Good old tobacco control, eh? Still fostering discord where once there was tolerance and harmony.

UPDATE: Thanks to SadButMadLad in the comments, here is the "living hell" in question.


10 comments:

Anonymous said...

If I apply some logic to this matter, the one doing the suing is in Apartment A and the allged evil-doer of smoking cigars in his private home is in Apartment G.

Aren't most buildings labeled down the hall or down the hall back and forth from one side to the other.

So either the one doing the suing is here, in A bcdef G is where the one is located doing the evil smoking, 6 apartments away - and with special air filtration and exhaust installed as great expense one can imagine.

Or, the one is here in A ce G is where the evildoer lives, 4 apartments away.

I notice nobody complaining from the apartments sitting between #A and #G, the evil smoke must have made a bee-line directly for #A, bypassing everyone in-between.

Also, if the one is a stockbroker with the market not doing well this year and the other a small business owner selling gift baskets, which are an unrequired luxury item during a recession - since these are tony $2M apartments and they are both used to an expensive lifestyle, then maybe it isn't so much the sweet aroma of charming tobacco scent and pre-prejudiced mindset causing them to sue - as much as it is a pre-existing need for money - as $2M would go a very long way during a recession.

Yes, this could set a very bad precedence indeed.

SHS Fraud is the real reason these kinds of things are happening, that plus the MSM and politicians' acquiesence to fascists higher up obviously calling the shots and keeping this SHS Fraud lie alive and going.

SadButMadLad said...

Or they could be number in a U shape Abc d efG with d at the end of the corridor. Still makes the smell passing across the corridor and affecting them a far fetched idea.

Anonymous said...

It's a 20 story building and they are on both on floor #3, yet nobody is complaing from floors #4 through #20 - and smoke typically rises, unless anti-smoking has rewritten the laws of physics to suit the construction of a lawsuit, another good question. But if he had an exhaust and cleaning system installed at great expense then I'd say he already went way out of his way to accomodate them. And Second Hand Aroma is not the same as Second Hand Smoke, even though the SHS Fraud is still just that, a fraud.

SadButMadLad said...

Some links...

Amanda Poses blog on HuffingtonPost
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amanda-poses

Article with picture of Harry Dale
http://www.drugfreehomes.org/tag/harry-dale-lawsuit

The apartment block in question
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=40.771377,-73.952075&spn=0.003591,0.014656&z=17&iwloc=A&layer=tc&lci=com.panoramio.all,com.youtube.all,com.google.webcams,transit_comp&cbll=40.771275,-73.950021&panoid=NkE1a2VJcEsCJY29jp33Uw&cbp=12,27.32,,0,-14.6

Anonymous said...

Huffington Post tells me right there what this is.

Anonymous said...

What I mean is, the very fact she's on Huffington Post, is all I need to know, of the mindset she is coming from.

Bucko said...

A living hell? Seriously?
Fucking muppets!

Dick Puddlecote said...

SBML: That is seriously brilliant detective work.

The gal is on Huffpo, eh? Says a lot, that.

Grifters used to have far more panache.

Angry Exile said...

Could it be a square layout of apartments? That would make A and G much closer together, though presumably there'd still be an apartment H between them occupied by someone who's not bothered. And what about those symptoms the poor chiiiiiildren are suffering from? Lost sleep and headaches, would that be from headaches of have they caught a case of neurosis.

SBML: love the drugfreehomes.org site, especially the banner photo of the smiling man using his family as human shields.

Anonymous said...

DP's statement says, "...he's done everything to appease the family NEXT DOOR..." This is easy to miss. But we can assume that they do indeed live next door to each other.

If I was Mr Dale, I would secretly arrange for some pungent odour to be released in my apartment - like hydrogen sulfide (fart) - in the same quantities as my cigar smoke. I would keep a record of when and where these emissions occur. Since these people are obviously not short of a bob or two, I would have sensors in various places to record the detection of the hydrogen sulfide. I would tell no one about this other than those who need to know. I would keep the argument going about the tobacco smoke so as to disguise what I was doing. I would then wait for complaints about the smell exuding from my apartment. Assuming that the smell does not impinge on next door, I would produce this in evidence at the trial. It would be great fun.