[thaumasiotes]

> I prefer my neighbors not to stink up the whole building by [cooking smelly food|smearing shit on their walls|...], but that shouldn't make it illegal.

This example could have been chosen better. While you're correct that your dislike of the smell isn't, in the absence of other facts, a great reason for criminalizing your neighbors smearing shit on their walls, that is in fact illegal, it is illegal for very good reasons, and you dislike the smell for the same reasons doing it is illegal. In that case, the smell is actually telling you something important.

I think we have more of a "this has to be allowed" exception for cooking food than we have a general policy of "we won't take smells into account when deciding what's allowed".