Where can and where can you not smoke in an apartment building?

Where can I complain if my neighbor in a communal apartment smokes?

In a communal apartment, the total area is the entire technical part: toilet, bathroom, kitchen, corridor, hallway. Your neighbor's room is his personal territory, and you cannot prohibit smoking in it. If the neighbors are reasonable, then you should talk to them and explain your complaints peacefully. Most people then stop smoking indoors.

It will be difficult for a neighbor who is prone to aggression or antisocial behavior to prohibit smoking in the kitchen. Here we can advise you to contact the local police officer. Rospotrebnadzor is unlikely to agree to be on duty on your territory to catch a malicious smoker. The district police officer is obliged to respond to such statements from residents as part of his duty. He has many means in his arsenal to punish the offender without a fine.

Hypothetically, it is possible to sue a smoking neighbor for causing damage to health. The harm will need to be documented, as will the facts of repeated smoking. A cause-and-effect relationship will also have to be proven.

What to do if cigarette smoke comes into your apartment

The state has been pursuing an anti-tobacco policy since 2013–2015. But as of 10/1/19, nothing has changed for smokers. But this does not mean that a complaint cannot be filed against violators. We will tell you how to legally deal with smoking neighbors who bother you.

We will provide a general scheme for combating smokers. Despite the differences in anti-tobacco laws in different regions of the country, this scheme can be applied in any subject of the federation:

1. Moscow.
2. Moscow region.
3. St. Petersburg (SPb).
4. Nizhny Novgorod.
5. Kazan.
6. Samara.
7. Astrakhan.
8. Krasnoyarsk
9. Chelyabinsk.

And in any other region of the Russian Federation. If you have a neighbor who smokes in his apartment so that the smoke comes to you through the ventilation, follow the same procedure.

Legal advice

A separate balcony is a private area, so the law does not prohibit smoking on it. But only until it causes discomfort to the other residents of the apartment building.

However, it is important to take into account that it is quite difficult to prove the harm caused by a neighbor who smokes - it is necessary to take special measurements of the nicotine content in the air, obtain evidence that health has deteriorated due to tobacco smoke, etc.

All this requires a lot of time and effort, so you should make every effort to agree peacefully not to smoke on the balcony.

If this is not possible, a claim should be filed. But you need to prepare for going to court:

• call the local police officer to draw up a report on violation of public order;
• undergo a medical examination;
• put up a sign asking you not to smoke on the balcony;
• record your attempts to peacefully resolve the issue through dialogues;
• survey neighbors about their willingness to confirm the harm caused by a smoker, etc.

When there is sufficient evidence of a violation of civil rights, as well as confirmation of attempts to resolve the issue pre-trial, you can file a claim in the magistrate’s court.

And the management organization may suffer

One of the responsibilities of the management authority in order to properly maintain common property is to ensure sanitary and epidemiological measures, monitor the technical condition of apartment buildings and monitor fire safety.

After all, if, in the event of an inspection, Rospotrebnadzor or fire supervision authorities establish violations of fire safety rules, liability under Part 2 of Art. 6.25 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation can also involve a management organization, HOA, residential complex or housing cooperative. The fines are quite large:

• for a legal entity: from 50 to 80 thousand rubles,
• for an official: from 20 to 30 thousand rubles.

Communal apartment

On the issue of using cigarettes in a communal apartment, separate clauses have been introduced into the law. Article 12, paragraph 5 contains a ban on smoking in premises provided for temporary residence; Clause 10 prohibits the use of tobacco products in premises intended for common use within the same apartment building and in elevators.

In the case of a communal apartment, the kitchen, bathroom, corridor, balcony are premises provided for general use and are subject to the smoking ban. If a person rents a room in a communal apartment, it is not his property, and he has no right to smoke in it. If this room belongs to the resident, he can smoke while within this room. But in this case (if the room is not equipped with a good exhaust system), smoking can harm other residents of the apartment. Under these conditions, smoking is also prohibited in this room.

The only solution to the issue of smoking in a communal apartment is an oral agreement between its residents and the determination of the premises designated for smoking. It is also worth ensuring good ventilation in these rooms. This will help preserve the health of non-smoking neighbors and avoid fines and explanatory conversations with the police in the future.

Why did the law banning smoking on balconies create panic among smokers?

On many TV channels, and even at the beginning of 2021, there was news that Russia had adopted a law banning smoking on balconies. Many journalists, as always, without understanding, said that from October 1, a smoking ban will be introduced on the balconies of high-rise buildings and a fine will be applied to violators. Smokers began to really panic. The Internet community is buzzing...

What really happened? No law has been adopted banning smoking on balconies in apartment buildings. Only the fire regulations have changed.

The misinformation began with explanations from the Ministry of Emergency Situations, whose authorized representative stated on television that in 2021 a ban on lighting open fires, bonfires and smoking on the balconies of apartment buildings would be introduced. However, the Emergencies Ministry employee confused smoking a cigarette with open burning. Opening burning is a fire.

In addition, it turns out that the new restriction is far from new, since Fire Safety Rules have long prohibited the lighting of open fires in any areas of apartment buildings. Therefore, so far the laws have not changed much regarding smokers.

We conclude: you can smoke cigarettes on the balcony of your own apartment, just as you can do it inside the living space, as well as in the window and vent of the apartment.

Soon, the erroneous interpretation of the law banning smoking on balconies was corrected, and Russians heard explanations from their TV screens - it was still possible to smoke and smoke from one’s own apartment into the windows of neighboring apartments and fines would not be applied in this case.

However, it should be said that not all balconies or loggias that are privately owned by citizens are allowed to smoke. Houses of the old series, in which a number of apartments have one long balcony separated by partitions, will not allow smoking, since smoke will enter neighboring apartments through such a partition, which is unacceptable.

Judicial precedents

When trying to stop neighbors from smoking on the balcony, you can use not only legislative acts, but also examples from judicial practice.

Thus, in 2013, in Novosibirsk, a dispute was considered between residents of an apartment building - a smoking man and a family with a small child. The first smoked constantly on his loggia, and the smoke rose upstairs - to where the young family lived. After the peace negotiations failed to produce results, the neighbors demanded compensation for moral time (in the amount of 250 thousand rubles) and a smoking ban.

The court case was considered for 3 years in courts of various instances, until the Supreme Court decided the dispute in favor of the plaintiff and imposed a fine of 5,000 rubles. The harm caused to health was not proven, so the defendant did not receive a ban on smoking on his own balcony.

A fine of the same amount was imposed on a smoker in Krasnoyarsk in 2021. The plaintiff had to complain to the court about the neighbor after requests to stop smoking did not produce any results. The woman presented the judge with an extract from her medical record confirming the harm caused to her health by tobacco smoke:

• allergies;
• high blood pressure;
• frequent headaches;
• breathing problems.

Based on these facts, the court banned the neighbor from smoking on the balcony and imposed a fine on him in the amount of 5 thousand rubles.

Thus, the answer to the question of whether neighbors have the right to smoke on the balcony is not unambiguous, and the result of the struggle depends on perseverance and the collected evidence base.

Neighbors complain about smoke: is it possible to smoke without disturbing them?

If a smoker on the balcony systematically listens to complaints from neighbors, it is worth taking them into account, because residents who do not want to breathe tobacco smoke can protect their rights administratively.

In order not to become the object of attention of the local police officer, it is important to correctly assess the level of harmful effects of regular smoking on the comfortable life of others.

To minimize the risk of complaints, it is worth choosing areas specifically designated for tobacco lovers.

Amount of fine

A fine for smoking in an apartment is issued only if the neighbors or co-owners of communal housing manage to prove their case in court. With this development of events, smoking adherents will have to pay 500-1500 rubles. If minors were involved in the process of purchasing or consuming tobacco products, the fine increases to 2000-3000 rubles.

Throughout 2015, 108,995 people were fined in Russia for not complying with the requirements of Federal Law No. 15. Moreover, 5,248 offenders did not learn the lesson, made the same mistake a second time and were forced to pay the fine again.

Rental apartment

Article 12 of Federal Law No. 15-FZ indicates a ban on smoking in certain premises designed to provide temporary housing, hotel services and temporary accommodation services. But in most cases, the ban is determined by the owner of the home. If he is not against smoking and allows the tenant to “smoke” in the premises, this is not a violation of the law and gives the tenant the full right to use cigarettes in the apartment. In this case, the same conditions apply as when smoking in your own apartments: do not harm the health of your neighbors, do not create a fire hazard.

At what distance can and should you be?

However , there is an opinion that smoking is prohibited in the local area. Supporters of this version rely on the fact that, according to Part 1 of Art. 36 of the Housing Code of the Russian Federation and clause 2 of the Rules for the maintenance of common property in an apartment building (approved by Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated August 13, 2006 No. 491), the property of the residents in the house also includes the land plot on which the house is located.

If we consider this opinion to be correct, then in order to smoke a resident must move outside the local area, and its boundaries are determined by the norms of land legislation and regulations on urban planning activities. On the ground, these boundaries are not always marked.

Fine for smoking in the entrance of a residential building 2021

Smoking in unauthorized places is regarded as an administrative offense. The act entails liability under Article 6.24 of the Code of Administrative Offences. This article does not provide for such a preventive measure as a warning. Penalties will be imposed for the first violation of the law, even with repentance and admission of guilt.

Smoking law requirement

The allowable fine amounts are shown in the following table.

The amount of the fine is determined by the police officer. The size of the penalty is affected by the behavior of the offender and the category of violation (first and repeated). You can pay the fine in cash or by money order. For repeated violation of the law or for failure to pay a fine, a more severe punishment may be imposed, up to 15 days of arrest.