Commercial Tobacco Use
Smoke-Free Housing
Smoke-free housing policies are an effective way to ensure all residents and staff of multi-unit properties, like apartments or condominiums, have the right to breathe clean air in their homes. These policies restrict smoking or vaping in residential units, common areas, and on property grounds. Smoke-free housing policies are also a critical step in advancing health equity, especially for communities who are disproportionately exposed to secondhand smoke or aerosol. These policies may also provide significant cost savings and benefits to property owners and managers.
On this page:
Smoke-free housing policies
Protecting health and reducing costs
Smoke-free protections in Minnesota
Communities can strengthen smoke-free protections
Smoke-free housing policies restrict smoking or vaping within multi-unit residences. Key policy characteristics include:
- Areas covered: Comprehensive policies should apply to all indoor areas, including individual dwelling units and common areas (hallways, lobbies, laundry rooms). They also often apply to some or all outdoor areas of the property.
- Products covered: While many policies focus on lit commercial tobacco products (e.g. cigarettes, cigars, hookah, etc.), property owners or managers are encouraged to expand their coverage to include smoking or vaping of all substances.
- Legal basis: For Public Housing Agencies (PHAs), the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development mandated a 100% smoke-free policy for all public housing other than dwelling units in mixed-finance buildings, effective in 2018. For private multi-unit buildings and common interest communities (condos or townhomes), policies are often adopted voluntarily by property owners or associations through lease addendums and governing document updates.
Learn more: Smoke-free Housing | Public Health Law Center
Smoke-free housing is crucial for protecting health, reducing financial costs, and advancing health equity.
Health and health equity
- Secondhand exposure: There is no risk-free level of secondhand smoke or aerosol exposure. Secondhand smoke or aerosol from one unit can easily travel through shared air systems, vents, and wall openings into neighboring units.
- Health harms: Secondhand smoke and aerosol exposure increases the risk of serious illnesses in adults, including cancer, heart disease, and stroke. For children, exposure is linked to sudden unexpected infant death (SUID), ear infections, and more frequent or severe asthma attacks.
- Health equity: Some communities are more likely to live in multi-unit housing, making them especially vulnerable to secondhand smoke exposure. Smoke-free policies are a social justice issue that help reduce these health disparities. See Smoke-free protections in Minnesota.
- Thirdhand smoke: Particles from secondhand smoke or aerosol settle as toxic residue on surfaces (thirdhand smoke) and can re-emit into the air over time, posing health risks to residents. Thirdhand smoke is especially harmful for children as it can settle on surfaces like carpets, bedding, toys, or other items left out in the open.
Financial and property benefits
- Cost savings: Eliminating smoking in units significantly reduces maintenance and turnover costs for property owners, as cleaning and renovating a smoking unit is more expensive and time-consuming than a non-smoking one. Property owners may even be able to save money on property insurance by implementing a comprehensive smoke- and vape-free policy.
- Fire safety: Smoking is the leading cause of home fire deaths. Smoke-free policies act as a preventative measure, reducing fire risk and potential losses.
- Marketability: Smoke-free properties are a marketable amenity; most people who rent would prefer a smoke-free building over one that allows smoking.
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Minnesota is a leader in protecting clean air. In 1975, Minnesota became the first state to restrict smoking in indoor public places and workspaces. The Minnesota Clean Indoor Air Act (MCIAA) protects workers and the public from the harmful effects of breathing secondhand smoke. It's also helped put smoking out of sight and out of mind – preventing young people from starting and encouraging people who smoke to quit.
For multi-unit housing, like apartment buildings, the MCIAA restricts smoking and vaping in common areas, like hallways, community rooms, or laundry rooms. Property managers or owners may extend policies to cover individual units.
In 2019, the MCIAA was expanded to include e-cigarette use (vaping) and cannabis use – a change due in part to the multitude of cities and counties across the state leading the way with stronger clean air protections for their communities. In 2024, the smoking or vaping of non-medical, adult-use cannabis was prohibited in all areas of multifamily housing buildings, as well as locations where smoke or aerosol would be inhaled by minors.
Reductions in smoking and secondhand exposure
Smoke-free housing policies benefit both people who do and do not smoke. A Minnesota study of affordable housing properties that adopted smoke-free policies found a significant reduction in indoor exposure to secondhand smoke among people who do not smoke.
This same study also found that most people who smoked before the policy reported smoking less after the smoke-free policy was implemented.
Learn more: SHIP Smoke-free Housing Evaluation – Findings from Public Housing (PDF)
Local and community policies
Communities across the state are bringing cleaner, safer air to residents by working with local property managers and homeowners' associations to implement smoke-free housing policies.
As part of the Statewide Health Improvement Partnership (SHIP), local health departments and community partners in Minnesota worked with over 100 apartment complexes to implement smoke-free housing policies, adding protections for more than 21,000 residents between Nov. 2022 and Oct. 2025.
Gaps in smoke-free protections
Despite MCIAA updates, voluntary policies, and overall reductions in secondhand smoke and aerosol exposure, many Minnesotans are still exposed.
In 2023, one in six students were still exposed to secondhand smoke in homes and cars, according to the Minnesota Youth Tobacco Survey. For students living in multi-family housing, more than one in four were exposed to secondhand smoke. Nationally, secondhand smoke exposure is more than two times greater among adults over age 25 with less than a college degree, families with incomes below the federal poverty level, and Black adults.
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Most Minnesota residents living in multi-unit housing would prefer having smoke-free protections. Local communities, including private residential complexes, may adopt additional protections for their residents.
Minnesota cities and counties also have the authority to extend smoke-free protections to all properties in their jurisdictions to protect residents from commercial tobacco and cannabis smoke and aerosol.
Learn more: Minnesota Smoke-free Multiunit Housing – Model Ordinance | Public Health Law Center (PDF)
