Landlord Bans Smoking in All Apartment Buildings

• Jun 17th 2013

by UrbanTurf Staff

New DC apartment buildings started doing it about five years ago, but now a national property owner is taking a healthy ban to a new level.

Related Companies, the owner of over 40,000 rental units across the country, will ban smoking in every section of its buildings, including the units themselves, The New York Times reported this weekend.

The ban will take effect gradually for existing residents, but start immediately for new tenants. From The Times:

New tenants must sign a contract promising not to smoke anywhere in the building, including their private terraces or balconies. If they break the rules, they can be evicted. But those already renting will not face the same fate until after they renew their leases and sign the no-smoking contract. With a turnover rate of 10,000 a year, Related’s apartments could conceivably be smoke-free in a few years’ time.

As UrbanTurf reported back in 2010, there are a number of apartment buildings in the DC area that have instituted this ban. 220 20th Street became the first apartment building in Northern Virginia to implement a no-smoking policy when it opened in June 2009. The DC apartment project 425 Mass followed suit in 2010 as did the Millenium at Metro Park in Arlington. A few other buildings in the region have instituted similar policies since then.

Would you live in a completely non-smoking building? Let us know in the comments.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/national_landlord_bans_smoking_in_all_buildings/7209.