The Big (Smoking) Ban Theory

When Phyllis Goldstein, a board member at the North Shore Towers and Country Club, was asked to organize a campaign to ensure the passage of a controversial proprietary lease amendment, she knew she was up for the task. For the second time in recent years, the board at this sprawling, 1,844-unit co-op complex in northeastern Queens was gearing up to enact a ban that would block residents from smoking in their own homes.

“It’s not easy to persuade people who say, ‘Don’t tell me what to do,’” Goldstein says. “But I’m very organized and transparent. I helped explain why our buildings should be smoke-free and was able to convince people that we were right.”

Boards have used myriad methods to pass smoking bans, but mobilizing shareholders to vote was a key step for the North Shore Towers. The first attempt to pass a smoking ban failed, Goldstein says, because the measure was part of the annual election. When an insufficient number of shareholders voted at the annual meeting, the measure died.

“People wanted the ban,” Goldstein insists, “but it made us realize that we needed a stand-alone election to pass such a challenging measure.” 

After receiving several complaints about second-hand smoke seeping into people’s apartments, the board informed shareholders in early April 2016 that it was planning to adopt a house rule prohibiting new residents from smoking inside their apartments. The rule was quickly passed and became effective July 1.

Since smoke continued to emanate from apartments purchased before the new house rule, the board decided to go the extra step and amend the proprietary lease, which requires the approval of a two-thirds super-majority of shareholders. Recalling its first failure to pass a smoking ban – and taking into account that an unreturned ballot counted as a “No” vote – the board turned its attention to getting out the vote.

Goldstein, who had a long career as a special-education teacher in the city’s public schools, recruited 50 volunteers. “When you’re a special-ed teacher,” she says, “you need to be very specific with your instructions all the time and be focused on not just what’s happening today, but tomorrow and beyond.”

Goldstein penned an article for the co-op newsletter and organized a shareholders’ meeting on the issue. At the meeting, Northwell Health and NYC Smoke-Free, two nonprofit anti-smoking groups, made presentations, and a resident and engineer explained the difficulty of blocking secondhand smoke from traveling between apartments.

“It was an exceptional meeting, standing-room-only,” says Phil Konigsberg, of the Queens Tobacco Control Coalition. “Every question was answered.”

With the voting set to take place during August and September, Goldstein laid out a plan. Each tower was split into two sections, with a building captain and floor captains coordinating volunteers assigned to specified floors. As the nonprofit American Arbitration Association collected proxies, volunteers took note of which shareholders had voted. If a proxy had not been voted, a volunteer was sent to knock on the shareholder’s door with a blank proxy in hand.

In addition, floor captains made sure that reminder memos were slipped under doors and phone calls were made. Volunteers tracked down residents on vacation and, in many cases, the adult children of residents who’d been given shareholder responsibility for their parents. Proxies were mailed out with a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

The military precision of the campaign paid off. Seventy-two percent of the shareholders voted to accept the smoking ban – well above the required super-majority. Residents and their guests can still smoke in designated areas, including the golf course and outside the rear exit of the on-site restaurant.

“It was an arduous task,” Goldstein says, “but we had people who were gung-ho and believed in the smoking ban helping us day and night. I had people come up to me weeks after the vote, thanking me for my work.”