Re: HOA ultimate power trip bans smoking inside one's home

On 2/1/2025 3:30 PM, BTR1701 wrote:

On Feb 1, 2025 at 12:13:08 PM PST, "moviePig" <nobody@nowhere.com> wrote:
 

On 2/1/2025 1:37 PM, BTR1701 wrote:

  On Feb 1, 2025 at 9:20:28 AM PST, ""Adam H. Kerman"" <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
 

  Castle doctrine be damned: HOAs will attempt to regulate personal
  conduct under any and all circumstances, even within the confines of
  one's own home.
>
  Here's the Steve Lehto video.
>
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3NbQQFrOTU
>
  I am so ready to support death penalty as a judgment against HOAs in
  civil suits.

    If this is not a situation where the home is sharing common walls and air
  ducts with other units, then I can't imagine how a court could uphold this.
    What would be the HOA's justification for it? It can't be to protect other
  residents since smoking in your standalone home does not affect anyone else.
  If it's some busybody who's justifying it by claiming, "We're just concerned
  about your health" (because that's the only other conceivable reason for
such
  a ban), then how far would this power extend?
    Could the HOA ban consumption of meat in your home and force all residents
to
  become vegan for their health? Could they regulate how often you and your
  spouse have sex? Either limiting the number of your sexual encounters or, if
  you're not doing it enough in their opinion, force you to have sex a minimum
  number of times per week? Can they force you to exercise a minimum number of
  hours per week? Can they limit your screen time on TVs, phones, and tablets
  for your own good?
    If not, why can't they do any of that but they can ban you from smoking?
    And how can they enforce this ban? Peek in your windows? If you draw the
  blinds can they force you to allow them inside your home every week to
ensure
  there's no smell of cigarette smoke or butts in the trash can? Can they
search
  your home, pulling open all the drawers and forcing you to open locked
  cabinets and safes, looking for cigarette packs?
    When this reaches a courtroom these are all questions both the judge and the
  HOA are going to have to answer. If this smoking ban is allowed, where's the
  line beyond which they can't cross and why is it there and not before the
  smoking ban?

>
The question's going to be whether there are categorical limits to what
an HOA can address. Or, maybe you've previously agreed there are none.

 All contracts are subject to a reasonableness standard. Juries and judges
decide what is reasonable, not HOA boards.
 If your HOA just decided out of the blue that you no longer have the freedom
to stay out beyond 8PM-- that there's now a mandatory curfew-- and that even
in your home, there's now a mandatory bedtime of 9PM and anyone caught with
lights on, using TVs, tablets or phones, or reading books past 9PM are subject
to fines and eventual home foreclosure, and the basis for this is some
catch-all line in the bylaws that says, "...or anything else the HOA may deem
necessary", I'll bet a year's income that no court would find that reasonable
and allow it to remain in place.

That makes some sense.  But maybe creating a "smoke-free neighborhood" is defensible as trying to augment property values ...in Utah, say.