PRACTICAL LEGAL IMPLEMENT CO-OP CONDO SMOKING BANS

We regularly field calls from boards that have adopted smoking bans or are looking for advice on that process. Some advertise their smoke-free status on their websites, suggesting that they view their smoking ban not as the sales impediment that many co-op shareholders and condominium unit-owners have traditionally feared, but as a marketing advantage.

There is no risk-free level of

exposure to second-hand smoke.

― 2006 Surgeon's General report

Some co-op and condo boards remain concerned that a smoking ban will reduce the pool of prospective apartment buyers, but Chris Banthin ― an attorney working with the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University School of Law to develop free-market strategies to reduce smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke ― points out that with non-smokers now significantly outnumbering smokers, smoking restrictions are likely to attract more buyers than they repel.

Projecting current trends, he suggests the non-smoker to smoker ratio will become even more lopsided, smoking bans will be more widespread, and with fewer options available to them, smokers will concentrate in the remaining buildings that allow smoking. So co-ops and condos that choose not to adopt smoking bans will be choosing, in effect, to become smokers' buildings in the future, Banthin contends.

Condominium owners who are willing to tolerate a few smoking neighbors today may feel differently if they find themselves a few years from now in a small minority, vastly outnumbered by residents who smoke. And as the ranks of smokers continue to decline, the pool of potential buyers and tenants interested in smokers' buildings will shrink as well, giving communities another strong economic argument for going smoke-free.

Going Beyond "Nuisance"

It is possible to prohibit smoking by claiming it to be a "nuisance," in violation of the proprietary lease or other governing documents. But this is not an approach we recommend, for several reasons. First, while the board's authority to regulate activities in common areas is clear, its authority to restrict activities in individual units is both less clear and more restricted.

As smokers veer toward buildings

allowing smoking, co-ops and

condos not adopting bans become,

in effect, smokers' buildings.

Second is the difficulty of defining precisely what a nuisance is. Think of noise as an example. Some people are more sensitive to noise or less tolerant of it than others. The same is true of smoke. Some people are more concerned about second-hand smoke than others. Some find even a trace of smoke intolerable, while others barely notice the odor in a smoke-filled room.

Courts in some jurisdictions have found that second-hand smoke rises to the level of a nuisance or a "trespass" if it exacerbates an underlying health condition (asthma, for example) of those exposed to it. But other courts have noted a distinction between an annoyance and a nuisance, finding that because a neighbor is annoyed or offended by smoke is not in itself sufficient grounds for prohibiting residents from engaging in a legal activity (smoking) inside their homes.

The Supermajority Speaks

So nuisance is simply not a strong enough peg on which to hang a cooperative or condominium association's no-smoking policy. Boards wanting to prohibit smoking in apartments should amend the co-op proprietary lease or condo governing documents via the supermajority vote of owners required to do so.

While the courts remain reluctant to restrict what individuals can do within their own homes, they are less likely to challenge a policy approved by a supermajority of owners than one imposed by the community's elected board. Moreover, courts have recognized that a condo or co-op board has the right to change its governing documents and to make those changes retroactive.

In what may be the first court decision addressing the questions raised by a community association's smoking ban, a Colorado court upheld the policy, rejecting the 'my-home-is-my-castle' argument of smokers, who said the ban interfered unfairly and unreasonably with their right to the full use and enjoyment of the unit they owned. In Heritage Hill Condo Owners v. Sauve (2006), the court was influenced strongly by evidence that the board had gone to great lengths to find other solutions, short of a ban, that would address the concerns of non-smoking neighbors. A well-drafted ban, properly enacted (with the required owners' vote), should stand on its own.

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