Why can’t people make safety decisions for themselves? Many people will choose electric/induction stoves, or not rent an apartment with a gas stove. But many people do prefer it, and I don’t think it should be up to you or the government whether something is “good” for them or not.
Most people in NYC rent, and there are many other considerations to make when picking an apartment to move into besides what kind of stove it has. You're often taking what you can get. This law will mean that, going forward, there will be more apartments available that don't have air-quality-destroying gas stoves, meaning there'll be more suitable places for people to pick from.
Also, as the other commenter said, these are apartment buildings. If you burn your apartment down it's gonna affect your neighbors. If you mess up your indoor air quality it's gonna affect your neighbors.
How do you effectively mandate that those building owners are maintaining their gas lines and ensuring they aren't leaking?
This is where it stops being "personal responsibility"
Also you personally can still have gas anyway, you just don't get government subsidized gas infrastructure anymore. Go get your own propane tank or whatever. Go be "personally independent"
The briefest of search finds a page claiming that landlords opposed fire escape regulation when it was introduced, as it was costly and supposedly unattractive. I would not be surprised if some of them argued for freedom of choice in the matter.
Because in an apartment building your neighbor's apartment being on fire has a high degree of correlation to if your apartment catches on fire (or gets smoke/water damage).
For one reason, your decision to use a gas stove affects all the people who live within proximity of you. Everyone’s air quality could be affected, and everyone’s risk of carbon monoxide poisoning increases, and everyone’s risk of fire increases.
All kinds of reasons. Besides widespread societal misinformation going back to the tobacco lobbyist days, a five-year-old cannot express a preference not to inhale toxic fumes.
