Cigarette Smoke Lights Up Suit Neighbors Targeted For Secondhand Haze

Roy Platt is suing his downstairs neighbors for lighting up, objecting to secondhand cigarette smoke wafting through his windows.

“It’s been absolutely unbearable,” said the 49-year-old Platt, who does not work and remains at home most of the day working on model trains. “The smoke comes right into my room, like mustard gas.”

Also named in the lawsuit filed last month in Los Angeles Superior Court are officers of Platt’s condominium owners association, who he claims should either ban smoking or impose conditions on smokers like use of air filters or smokeless ashtrays.

The lawsuit seeks restrictions to prevent smoke from entering his condo, and unspecified monetary damages, said Platt’s attorney, Joseph M. Cobert.

Secondhand cigarette smoke is becoming a frequent point of dispute between neighbors but few have have actually filed lawsuits, said John Banzhaf, a law professor who also directs the non-profit group, Action on Smoking and Health.

One of the defendants, Platt’s neighbor Steve Landi, said it was “ludicrous” to go to court over the “six or seven cigarettes” his elderly mother smokes in her bedroom each day.

“Some perspective needs to be placed here,” Landi said.