Apartment owners are permitted by federal and state law to adopt total smoke-free policies.
HUD Legal Counsel letter of July, 2003 states that apartment owners are free under federal law to make their buildings totally smoke-free, so long as they ėgrandfatherî current residents who are smokers.
Michigan Attorney General Opinion of 1992 states that neither federal nor Michigan law prohibits a landlord from making his/her apartment building totally smoke-free. The laws of most other states are the same.
As the HUD Legal Counsel letter stated: ėThe right to smoke or not to smoke is not a right that is protected under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Öî because smokers are not a protected class under federal law.