New Secondhand-Smoke Frontier Focuses on Shared Residential Buildings

Smoking has been banned in a number of public places and worksites.

But, although individuals also have a right to live smoke-free in their own homes, if they wish, there's no comparable law prohibiting smoking in residential buildings, the New York Post reported. And that's creating work for a number of lawyers.

“Smoking in residential buildings is the hottest, newest issue now,” attorney Adam Leitman Bailey tells the newspaper. His firm represents over 200 apartment co-operatives, a number of which are facing smoking-related issues.

A New York City judge held in 2006 that a co-op board has a duty to protect shareholders who complain of having secondhand smoke in their homes.

Related coverage:

ABAJournal.com: "Settlement Requires Cigar-Smoking New Yorker to Pay His Neighbors $2K Per Stogie"