Asked by smokeless on 14-08-2014 16:09:53
Question posted in the Consumer Protection Law category relating to Western Cape

Hello, I'm having an issue with my landlord at our offices. He is enabling smokers to smoke near to doorways and outside our office's only window and source of clean air. He has placed large concrete ashtrays in the entrances and outside our window. We had to install an air duct to the top of our building to escape this smoke pollution in our office, only to have extra electricity bill each month to run the fan, as well as our office environment is drowned out by the noise of this.
We have had a meeting where the landlord agreed that these smokers are in contravention of the city bylaws with reagrds to the smoking, and that he will remove these ashtrys and put up no smoking signs. Nothing has been done though and we are still in either a noisey office, or a smoke filled one. The bylaws with regards to smoking clearly state that smokers may not smoke near entrances to buildings, courtyards etc.

We want to take this matter up with the city Health protector. Any advice before we do this? We'd obviously want to reserve the right to exercise our rights without prejudice, but I'd want to now be compensated for the loss I had to incur to install expensive air ducting (which I was made to pay half at the time). Also, this ducting fan chews up around 300 Watts all day long just so we can breathe fresh air.

Further information relating to Question:

Looking at my emails to this landlord, I see this issue has been ongoing, and ignored since at least 2012/12, nearly 2 years.