How To Draft or Amend Your Minneapolis Duplex’s No Smoking Policy

The issue of marijuana or cannabis consumption is coming up a lot. While I blogged about a housing provider’s obligations under Minnesota’s new state laws a few months back,  I’ve since discovered a way to help control it in your small multifamily building.

If you currently have a smoke-free policy in your property that does not specifically prohibit the smoking of medical cannabis, the Public Health Law Center at Mitchell Hamline School of Law suggests the following three steps to expand it:

1. Add an all-encompassing definition to the policy. The Public Health Law Center has language for a Model Smoke-Free Lease Addendum that may be found here.
2. Give current residents notice the policy will be changing no less than 30 days in advance. Sixty to 90-day notice is preferable.
3. If your current lease doesn’t allow for a way to amend the current policy, and your tenant refuses to sign an amendment voluntarily, you must wait until the lease is up for renewal before changing it. Of course, all new leases should include a smoke-free policy.

Nothing in Minnesota state law restricts housing providers from implementing more comprehensive no smoking rules for their properties. What’s more, nothing in state law guarantees a patient the right to expose others to secondhand smoke.

And while state law prohibits a housing provider from refusing to lease to someone due to being enrolled in the Medical Cannadbis Program, it does not require landlords to permit medical cannabis smoking or use on their property.