EVG reader RJ shares this Urban Etiquette Sign from inside an apartment building on Avenue A.
Some context.
So apparently a few newer residents in this building are upset with a longtime resident smoking with his door open. And the two sides took to signs to hash it out.
The response from the longtime tenant is quite something ...
"Yeah, all right. Guess what? You uptight whiney little punk. Instead of my cigarettes I'm going back (exclusively) to my old favorite — cigars. Just to piss you off! I suggest you either relax yourself and chill out or move back in with your parents (who are probably paying your rent anyway)
Ya' punk!"
Your move, newer resident.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I actually like the smell of cigar smoke a lot better than the smell of cigarette smoke. I smoke around 6 cigars a year, mostly during camping excursions. Also, when I first looked at the sign, I thought the old time resident wrote "whitey”, not “whiney”. That would have been much cooler although even cooler would have been “cracker”, even more old school.
ReplyDeleteI don't smoke anything, but I like the smell of good pipe tobacco the best. If I did smoke I'd smoke a pipe, but any tobacco odor could ruin the things I sell for a living. My landlord thought I was crazy when I told him I could smell tobacco from the ground floor bar all the way up on the 4th floor, but it was being sucked up the pipes or something and it took a lot of sealing off up in my apartment to get rid of it.
ReplyDeleteStop whining, ya newbie honkies!
ReplyDeleteI'm assuming the smoker does so with his door open because he (or someone he lives with) doesn't like the smell of cigarettes in his own apartment...?
ReplyDeleteAnd if this was an older "longtime East Village" tenant complaining about some "new woo bros" smoking in their building, everyone would be talking about how the neighborhood has gone to sh*t and been ruined.
ReplyDeleteThe "Back in the day..." and "I remember when..." neighborhood locals are such old conservatives now they don't even know it.
I'm with the n00bs on this one. I didn't quit smoking after so many years just so I could sit around in a cloud of someone else's smoke in my own home, but the stuff seeps right through walls, doors, windows, etc. According to science, even that much exposure to secondhand smoke is bad for you, and I really don't need the pangs of addiction that I get when I sit in a smoky room for awhile. Dude should take his smokes outside.
ReplyDeleteSorry, if I'm supposed to side with the smoker? Not going to happen. He's a dick. Dial back the machismo, cancer patient.
ReplyDeleteAlso, stop smoking in the hallways! I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to ask for or somehow indicative of being from Ohio. I'm from Brooklyn and arrogant smokers are the fucking worst.
Why smoke to die
ReplyDeletewhen you can smoke to get high
everyone is being lazy here. the smoker. and the affronted is too lazy to knock on a door. This isn't like mom leaving an note on the fridge "pick up your room darling"
ReplyDeleteThis idiot just gave his landlord a great excuse (by creating a nuissance) to terminate his rent stabilized lease and jack up the rent for a non-smoking tenant who isn't doing things just to piss off other tenants.
ReplyDeleteSteve Martin said it all: “Mind if I smoke?”...No, do you mind if I fart?”
ReplyDeleteOr as Norton said to Ralph: “Mind if I smoke?"...”I don’t care if you burn.”
Watch for the headline on the 6PM - another bloody confrontation over stupid actions. Will it be Murder on Avenue A? or "Will Bullwinkle put out That Cigar".
ReplyDeleteForgot the source but "Do you smoke?" "I don't know. Never looked."
ReplyDeleteI dislike trust fundies as much as the next person but this reeks of some old fuck who has deluded himself into thinking cancer is somehow "authentic" and "old school."
ReplyDeleteNot gonna side with the smoker. The response is ridiculous and the person is in the wrong. Tenants in NYS have a warranty of habitability and sanitary living environment, which the courts have interpreted as including the right to a smoke-free apartment. People have sued their neighbors over cigarette smoke seeping into their apartments in NYC and have won. So calm down, smoker, because you're in the wrong, and smoking is banned in public areas such as stairwells.
ReplyDeleteIt's ridiculous to accuse anybody who is disturbed by this "real NYer's" smoke of being a transplant. It doesn't matter. Secondhand smoke has a horrible impact on health, which is why laws exist to protect all of us from self-centered neighbors like the one who wrote that response.
Should the neighbor have tried to approach the smoker first? Sure, but you may not be sure who it is that smokes in the hallway if they do it while walking up / down, they may have already approached the smoker to no avail, or their previous interactions may have been difficult (the smoker seems self-centered and unreasonably angry). Would hate to live near you, Mr TobaccoQueen.
I may be wrong but don't most apartments still come with windows? Perhaps the smoker could crack a window open or smoke next to it if he rather not go outside 20-40 times per day to abide his addiction.
ReplyDeleteDo we know if the punk knows which person it is? who says the smoker is in the appt and not the hallway?
ReplyDeletewhy would anyone smoke in their appartment with the door open?
and if you are kicked out because your roomies make you go out.. well then go to the roof or outside or something..
Smoking in the hallways is inconsiderate, rude, and dangerous.
ReplyDeleteNot everyone wants to smell cigar/ette smoke. If you want to smoke do it on your fire escape, next to the window, or outside the building wherever.
What's next? Drinking in the hallway? Why not? It doesn't smell (not counting alcohol breath and spills, and puke.)
D
Smokers and smoking suck. If it is allowed anywhere then it belongs outside away from public places of assembly.
ReplyDeleteIn my mind this smoker is the punk.
Since when did it become okay to air out your stank apartment at the expense of everybody else? My neighbor does it to, and it's fucking disgusting. Smoke outside asshole or shut your goddamn door. You rent an apartment, not the common areas.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, smoke anywhere but the hallway, or do you selfishly assume everyone wants to smell the smoke? I don't, and if someone did smoke in the hallway I'd step out of my apartment and Lysol the air with the smoker in the hallway or not no matter where he/she is.
ReplyDeleteYou wanna smoke there? Ok, well I will clean the air.
D
Yeah, dude should probably close his door. Though I'm not siding with anyone who says you can't smoke in your own apt.
ReplyDeleteHow about having sex in the hallway and stairwell? There's a reason there are doors on apartments, open them to come in and go out only.
ReplyDeleteif someone doesn't like smoke, that's the end of the story. it's proper etiquette to provide any tenant their right for a peaceful and clean environment. they pay the same fare you pay. everybody has the responsibility to keep their habits to themselves not to impose them on others. if you need to smoke, make sure it's not streaming into anyone else's space, or being done at anyone else's expense. how near-sighted smokers become is astounding. but be assured as soon as something bothers the smokers, be it noise, or something else, they become whiners too. there's nothing sexy about making other people uncomfortable, whether they are new or old neighbors. It has nothing to do with who they are, what they do, what they look like. it's simply doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. be kind to your neighbor and they will be kind to you.
ReplyDeleteProblem is, if somebody is smoking indoors, other people are going to smell it - there's no way around it, and it's gross and dangerous. This guy has no right to pollute the place for everyone else. Trying to defend his b.s. by attacking someone who complains about it just makes it even more obnoxious. How about just saying I'm sorry, and then don't do it again? Why is that so damn difficult?
ReplyDeleteExactly, Crazy Eddie:
ReplyDelete"Mind if I smoke?"
"Not at all, mind if I fart?"
My dad—a longtime, incorrigible smoker—used to get such a kick out of that!
Here's a novel idea for smokers:
ReplyDeleteResin incense you burn when smoking. Non-toxic/carcinogenic. Kills the smell of smoke/marijuana.
Just an idea.
This isn't an issue of old-timer vs. new-comer. The smoker is clearly a right-wing a**hole.
ReplyDeleteSmoke if you like, what you like but don't subject others to it if you can avoid it.
ReplyDeleteI live in this building. I don't trust the information that the pro-smoking note is coming from an old timer. That's because over the last few months our building has gone insane. It's actually turned into a frat house. I've lived here for a few years, and the "old timers" are very pleasant (and I never noticed smokey hallways before). It's the new-comers who are complete douche bags. For example, the other week there was a note in the front entrance about someone seeking his missing frat paddle. Last weekend someone brought in a fire hydrant from the street and dressed it in a bra and panties. Weekday and weekend parties are becoming the norm. There have been hallway keg parties. Finding beer bottles and red bull cans littered throughout the stairwells and floors, also very normal.
ReplyDeleteUltimately what I can't figure out is if this building actually, maybe hasn't changed that much, or I just completely outgrew it. I also haven't had cold water for 2 months and when it's windy the kitchen window just blows off the hinges and into the apartment. Ahhh, the charms of East Village living.
But now I'm ranting. And moving. But stressing, the only nice thing about the building is old timers.
Last thing - that note about being able to smoke in the hallway was actually ripped to shreds that morning and left on the floor. Then it disappeared. And then, a few hours later, the EXACT same note reappeared - same blue color writing, same penmanship, same exact wording. New or old comers persistent.
"Last weekend someone brought in a fire hydrant from the street and dressed it in a bra and panties"
ReplyDeleteLOFL Please post a pic!!!
Frat paddle???
WHAP! ThankyousirmayIhaveanother?!!
WHAP! ThankyousirmayIhaveanother?!!
WHAP! ThankyousirmayIhaveanother?!!
D
The explanation from the tenant has confused the issue so much I don't know what to think. I want to hate them all so that's what I'm doing. But I mostly hate anybody with a frat paddle. And hope that whoever stole it beats the original guy with it mercilessly.
ReplyDelete