Some landlords are requiring that new tenants agree not to smoke. Bill Dawson, vice president of Sullivan-Dituri, a property management company, recently instituted that policy at the courtyard apartment building where Horelick and his family live.
Related Management in November launched a no-smoking program in a couple of its high-end properties in New York City and hopes to expand it to California.
"I do not believe smokers are a protected class," said Jeff Brodsky, president of Related Management. "If secondhand smoke emanating from an apartment is compromising another apartment . . . the landlord has to take some steps to actively mitigate that."
Karlsson, an art teacher, said she enjoys letting her 3-year-old daughter Meleja sit at an easel to paint on the narrow upstairs balcony of their rent-controlled apartment. But if their neighbor is smoking, they are driven back indoors. Karlsson and Horelick have sealed their windows and doors as well as they can, but Meleja must regularly take a steroid and use an inhaler to control her asthma.
"They protect children [from secondhand smoke] at schools, the beach and the promenade," Karlsson said, "but not where they sleep."
