Smokefree Market Rate and Private Multi-Unit Housing
The American Apartment Owners Association publishes several blogs in favor of creating smokefree policies. Click on the following to read:
- How to Draft a Non-Smoking Lease Agreement (published January 6, 2011)
- More Pressure on Landlords Over Smoking Policies discusses the advantages of smokefree housing policies (published December 13, 2010)
- Renters Willing to Pay More for Nonsmoking (published November 13, 2010)
- Battle For Smoke-Free Apartments Heats Up (published March 12, 2009)
- Clearing the Air: Smoke-Free Apartments (published August 10, 2008)
Read a November 2010 news article about a trendy "green" smokefree apartment building and about the demand for smokefree apartment buildings in Rockville, MD.
Owners experience Economic Benefits with Smokefree Units.
Read the Tobacco Control Legal Consortium 2009 publication Infiltration of Secondhand Smoke into Condominiums, Apartments and Other Multi-Unit Dwellings. There are 3 sections to the document:
- Section I explains the right of landlords, condominium associations and public housing authorities to prohibit smoking in individual units.
- Section II provides solutions for private individuals if secondhand smoke is seeping into their dwellings from neighboring units.
- Section III discusses enforcement concerns expressed by landlords and the advantages of specifically addressing smoking in a lease. This section also provides smoke-free language to use in a lease or in condominium bylaws.
August 14, 2008 response to an editorial question from a New Jersey landlord interested in finding out their options on implementing smokefree policies in their multi-unit dwelling. The question was prompted by a nonsmoking tenant who was getting smoked out of their unit.
November 2009, article newly-constructed New York City residential rental building on the Upper West Side that is the first to ban smoking in all units as well as public spaces. Since then, other apartment buildings that are newly built or rehabbed have implemented 100% smokefree policies.
City Campaigns to Promote Smokefree MUH
In December 2010, the New York City Department of Health launched its new ad campaign alerting parents to the dangers that secondhand smoke poses to children. Read the press release and view the television ads on their website, which also discusses the Department's Community Annual Health Survey of 10,000 adult residents in 2008. Key survey results are:
- Approximately one in five non-smoking adults (18%) is exposed to secondhand smoke at home. Exposure is comparable among men and women.
- Exposure at home among non-smokers is more common among adults ages 18 to 24 years than older adults (28% vs. 16%).
- Black and Asian non-smokers are more likely than whites to be exposed at home (21% vs. 15%); rates are also higher in those with a high school education or less (21% vs. 14%).
- A survey of new mothers in New York City found that over 3,700 mothers reported that their infants were exposed to secondhand smoke indoors.
Choose Smokefree Housing is a brochure published by Northwest Tobacco-Free Partnership to help tenants in Washington State resolve secondhand smoke migrating into their units.
Condominiums and Cooperatives Create Smokefree Policies
Visit the Boston Public Health Commission's website for Smokefree Properties with a wealth of information for condominium owners who are interested in making their property smokefree. Condominiums and cooperatives are creating legal 100% smokefree policies:
- Read an American Bar Association article, Butt Out! Controlling Environmental Tobacco Smoke in Condos, published by Probate & Property, Vol. 22, No.3, May/June 2008.
- In 2006, the Tobacco Control Legal Consortium published Legal Options for Condominium Owners Exposed to Secondhand Smoke, a discussion of legal options available to a condominium owner exposed to drifting secondhand smoke from a neighboring condominium unit.
- A July 2008 Portland Oregon tenant survey found that 46% said they "would not be comfortable renting an apartment where adjacent tenants smoke". Here is an editable blank tenant survey used by the Crow Hill Condos in Alaska to determine the feasibility of going smokefree.
Smoking can reduce the property value of a home up to $25,000, as reported by Bankrate.com. This April 2010 story states that, "smoking is the habit that will have the most dramatic effect on your ability to make the most of the sale of your house." A leading cleaning service company shared that with bankrate.com: "[T]here is nothing more expensive to eliminate than the traces of cigarette smoke... Any amount of smoking will do some damage, but the amount varies." ... Hiring a professional to wash everything in an average-sized home costs around $1,500 and to seal and paint will cost another $6,000.... If you were to revamp a house to put on the market for a really heavy smoker, it could cost you around $25,000."
Read a 2006 magazine article from a NYC co-op that voted to impose a 100% smokefree policy for its building. Also in 2006, a Colorado District Court ruled that a Heritage Hills Condominium Owners Association was within their rights to amend their Declaration of Covenants that "no nuisance shall be allowed upon the property... that is a source of annoyance to residents or which interferes with the peaceful possession and proper use of the property of its resident." The court ruled that the Declaration applied throughout the property, including the private units, and that secondhand smoke in their fact-specific situation was classified as a nuisance.
On the other hand, on May 26, 2011, the New York appellate court reversed a Manhattan judges 2009 decision that had ruled in favor of the non-smoking condo owner of a luxury TriBeCa building at 200 Chambers Street. The case was brought by non-smoking condo owners, against their neighbors who smoke, which caused health problems for the plaintiffs' daughter. The appellate division found that the plaintiffs' nuisance complaint failed because secondhand smoke is merely "an annoyance" and there was no condo bylaw prohibiting smoking in individual units. The second cause of action of negligence failed because the plaintiffs did not file complaints about the ventillation system against the condo board. Read the court ruling. Read news articles one and two from the December 2009 case rulings prior to the appeal.
Courts continue to see lawsuits pitting non-smokers against smoking neighbors. Read this January 2012 news article from the Washington Post.
Read the Tobacco Control Legal Consortium 2009 publication Infiltration of Secondhand Smoke into Condominiums, Apartments and Other Multi-Unit Dwellings. There are 3 sections to the document:
- Section I explains the right of landlords, condominium associations and public housing authorities to prohibit smoking in individual units.
- Section II provides solutions for private individuals if secondhand smoke is seeping into their dwellings from neighboring units.
- Section III discusses enforcement concerns expressed by landlords and the advantages of specifically addressing smoking in a lease. This section also provides smoke-free language to use in a lease or in condominium bylaws.
A 2008 publication from Public Health Law and Policy in California describes 3 different options to make a condominium complex smokefree.
To learn more about the legalities of no smoking policies for cooperatives, go to Smokefree Housing Ontario.
Note: The information presented on this website is not intended as, nor to be construed or used as, legal advice, and should not be used to replace the advice of your legal counsel.
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