Where There's Smoke, There's a Lawyer

April 4, 2008 — -- Do you smoke? Well, you better be careful where. I don't smoke, and I don't like the smell, but what some people are doing to smokers makes me say give me a break.

For the last 12 years, Galila Huff has owned Caffé la Fenicé, a restaurant serving Italian food on the Upper West Side of New York City.

Smoking there is forbidden. New York state bans it in all restaurants and bars.

Huff's apartment is a few blocks away at The Ansonia, an ornate turn-of-the-century building that both Babe Ruth and Arturo Toscanini once called home.

Huff lives there alone except for her Chihuahua, and her cigarettes. For 40 years, she's smoked a pack or two a day.

But then in October, she got a letter from her neighbors. It said, "Dear Resident, immediately cease smoking in your apartment, unless and until you take adequate steps to properly ventilate your smoke out of your apartment such that none enters the common hallway."

Huff couldn't believe it. First she can't smoke in her own restaurant, now she can't smoke in her own apartment?

"I mean the cigarettes smell, yeah. But I'm not puffing into their faces," she said.

The complainants -- Jonathan and Jenny Selbin -- wouldn't agree to a television interview, but they did file a lawsuit against Huff, saying she is "willfully, intentionally, recklessly and/or negligently endangering the health of plaintiffs and their 4-year-old son. … As evidenced by her refusal to address the grave danger posed to the health of a small child, despite repeated requests and warnings, defendant's conduct is actuated by evil and/or reprehensible motives."

Huff's dog didn't escape mention in the lawsuit either. The lawsuit continued, "Such motives are also evidenced by the fact that after plaintiffs complained about the smoke, defendant encouraged her dog to urinate on plaintiffs' property and in front of their doorway."

When asked whether it's true that her dog urinated on her neighbor's property, Huff said, "I never saw that, but maybe. I don't know." The dog had no comment.

Huff took steps to insulate her apartment. The apartment building did construction work, sealed off air ducts and made sure no smoke could get from her apartment to the Selbins', but now the neighbors were complaining about smoke in the hallway.

"I have read these comments with interest. Based upon the one-sided hit piece John Stossel chose to run on me without presenting the full factual background, I can understand why so many people have had such a strongly negative reaction. Stossel had -- a week before the piece ran -- our statement about the situation which provided the full story, but chose to simply ignore it. I do not expect I will change many minds here, but I did [think] you might want the full story, and might want to question why Stossel chose to present only one side. To view the statement we provided to him in its entirety, you can go to: http://blog.simplejustice.us/2008/04/06/stossels-folly--selbin-responds.aspx

The only change from what is set forth there is that the settlement we agreed to with our neighbor (which Stossel characterized as our "latest set of demands," when it was in fact an agreement negotiated with her lawyer, not some list of our demands) requires her to use the donated air purifiers and a smokeless ashtray. Period. Don't believe everything you read (or see on TV)."

ABC News asked people on the street -- smokers and non-smokers -- what they thought of the lawsuit. We told them that a woman who smokes in her own apartment is being sued by her neighbors because they say they can smell the smoke in the hallway, and asked them for their reactions.

CLICK HERE TO SEE SOME OF THEIR RESPONSES.

ABC News Producer Frank Mastropolo contributed to this report.