Q: The superintendent in my Manhattan prewar co-op constructing smokes all day lengthy in his basement workplace. Smoking just isn’t permitted in public areas within the constructing, and all the storage lockers which might be simply exterior his workplace are continuously in smoky air. Something we put in our storage locker will reek of cigarettes. The administration firm appears conscious of the problem, however hasn’t stopped it. Possibly he’s protected by a union? What can we do?

A: Your tremendous could also be highly effective. He could command a big workers. He stands out as the king of his workplace area. However that doesn’t give him the fitting to smoke there; doing so is definitely forbidden two methods.

First, whereas the tremendous’s house (if he has one) is his turf, his workplace is taken into account a standard house and topic to your constructing’s ban on smoking in public areas.

“Even when the tremendous works out of there, the residents are in a position to go to him within the workplace and generally might want to,” mentioned A.J. Rexhepi, managing accomplice at Century Administration Providers, which manages greater than 100 buildings. “It’s not the tremendous’s private house.”

Second, the tremendous’s workplace can also be thought of a office, and New York State’s Clear Indoor Air Act prohibits smoking in any indoor office, mentioned Leni Morrison Cummins, an actual property lawyer and the chair of condos and co-ops on the agency Cozen O’Connor.

“There’s in all probability different constructing staff that go into his workplace,” Ms. Cummins mentioned, “they usually’re entitled to a smoke-free office.”

The board’s first step ought to be to inform the tremendous that he could not smoke in his workplace, and that if he doesn’t cease there will probably be penalties. If that doesn’t work, Mr. Rexhepi mentioned, the board ought to notify the constructing administration firm.

The administration firm may ship a cease-and-desist letter to the tremendous, with a replica additionally going to the tremendous’s union consultant and the Realty Advisory Board, a authorized group that represents unionized co-ops. If he refuses to snuff his butts, he’ll possible be fired.

Questions on problematic supers are widespread in Ms. Cummins’s line of labor. She recalled one tremendous in a brand new luxurious constructing who dealt leisure medication to residents and took kickbacks from contractors; he was ultimately fired. One other was discovered sleeping within the mattress in an house he had entered to make repairs. After he proved unable or unwilling to do his job constantly, he was terminated, too.