By A.J. Keilty, President, KEILTY Realty Management
Ontario's residential tenancy legislation says nothing at all about smoking. The Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 does not use the word, and neither does any of the eight regulations made under it. The rules that decide whether your tenant may smoke come from somewhere else entirely. A public health statute governs the common areas. Your own lease governs the inside of the unit.
That split is the whole answer, and it is where this goes wrong in both directions. Some assume the province has already banned smoking in apartments, so no lease term is needed. Others assume a no-smoking clause is as unenforceable as a no-pets clause. Both are wrong, and the second one is wrong for a reason you can read in a single sentence of the Act.
The short version.
No. We searched the consolidated Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 at e-Laws on 2026-10-08, on a consolidation period running from 2026-09-21 against an e-Laws currency date of 2026-10-05. The counts are zero for "smok", "tobacco", "cannabis", "marijuana", "vap", "cigarette" and "nicotine". We also searched the words a drafter might have reached for instead, including "odour", "fume", "second-hand" and "air quality". Those are zero too.
We then opened every regulation made under the Act, enumerated from the statute page itself rather than from memory. There are eight. Across all of them, "tobacco", "cannabis", "marijuana", "vap", "cigarette" and "nicotine" return zero.
The word "smoke" appears six times, and every one of the six is the fire sense rather than the habit: smoke detectors in the useful life schedule to O. Reg. 516/06, and chimneys, smoke-pipes and flues in section 21 of O. Reg. 517/06. The word "smoking" appears in no regulation under the Act.
So there is no provision to look up, no deadline, no form. What there is instead is a public health statute that draws a line through your building, and a contract that can draw a second line inside it. The rest of this post is about where each line sits.
Is this you? If you own a rental in Kingston or Eastern Ontario and would rather not handle this yourself, KEILTY Realty Management manages it for a flat monthly rate. Tell us about the property and A.J. Keilty will call you within 20 minutes in business hours.
The prohibition lives in section 12 of the Smoke-Free Ontario Act, 2017, read at e-Laws on 2026-10-08 on a consolidation period beginning 2024-06-28. Section 12 (1) opens "Subject to any exceptions that may be provided for in the regulations, no person shall do any of the following in a place mentioned in subsection (2):", and the four listed things are smoking or holding lighted tobacco, smoking or holding lighted cannabis, using an electronic cigarette, and consuming a prescribed product in a prescribed manner.
Subsection 12 (2) then lists ten places. The one that matters to a residential owner is paragraph 5, and it is worth having in full: "Any indoor common area in a condominium, apartment building or university or college residence, including, without being limited to, elevators, hallways, parking garages, party or entertainment rooms, laundry facilities, lobbies and exercise areas."
Three features of that paragraph do real work. The first is "Any indoor common area", which stands on its own. It carries no test about whether the public is invited in and no test about whether anyone works there. A hallway in your building is a prohibited place because paragraph 5 says so, full stop.
The second is "including, without being limited to". The seven examples are illustrative. A stairwell, a mail room, a corridor and a storage room are all caught even though the paragraph never names them. An owner reading the list as a closed set will under-apply the provision.
Worth noting where the province's own page differs from the statute. The Ministry of Health lists eight examples rather than seven, because it adds stairwells. The addition is right as a statement of effect, since "without being limited to" plainly reaches a stairwell. It is not in the paragraph.
The third is the building list, and it is where the paragraph stops. Paragraph 5 names a condominium, an apartment building, and a university or college residence. It does not name a rental townhouse block, a stacked townhouse, a duplex, a triplex, a rooming house or a housing co-operative.
For those buildings you fall back on paragraph 2, "An enclosed workplace", on the footing that the shared interior is frequented by a superintendent, a cleaner or a contractor and is not itself a dwelling. That argument works, but it is fact-dependent rather than automatic. Do not write "all multi-unit buildings" on a sign and assume the statute agrees.
And the Act is a floor rather than a ceiling. Section 18 provides that where there is a conflict between a provision of the Act and "a provision of another Act, a regulation or a municipal by-law that deals with a matter to which this Act applies, the provision that is more restrictive of the matter to which this Act applies prevails, subject to section 19."
So a municipal by-law that goes further than section 12 governs in your building, and checking the by-law is part of the job.
One more limit: paragraph 5 is confined to indoor common areas. A courtyard, a rooftop terrace, an open parking lot and a walkway to the front door are not caught by it. An enclosed parking garage is named and is caught; an open-air lot beside it is not.
On the Act's own words, no. The chain runs through three definitions and it is worth following, because the answer is firmer than it looks.
A unit interior is not an "enclosed public place", because that definition turns on a place "to which the public is ordinarily invited or permitted access, either expressly or by implication, whether or not a fee is charged for entry". A tenant's apartment does not qualify.
It is also not an "enclosed workplace", because the third limb of that definition requires a place "that is not primarily a private dwelling". And section 1 (2) puts the point beyond argument for an ordinary apartment: "For greater certainty, and without restricting the generality of the expression, the following are primarily private dwellings for the purposes of the definition of 'enclosed workplace' in subsection (1): 1. Private self-contained living quarters in any multi-unit building or facility. 2. Any other prescribed place."
Read the scope words in that provision carefully, because they are load-bearing. Section 1 (2) deems a unit a private dwelling "for the purposes of the definition of 'enclosed workplace'" and for nothing else. It does not touch "enclosed public place" and it does not touch the other eight paragraphs of section 12 (2). It is a narrow deeming provision wearing the marginal heading "Private dwelling", which reads much wider than it operates.
Four things keep the unit interior from being a sealed box, and an owner should know all four.
Section 1 (2) deems "private self-contained living quarters". A bedroom in a rooming house with a shared kitchen and bathroom is arguably not self-contained, which puts you back to arguing the "not primarily a private dwelling" test on the facts. "Not primarily a private dwelling" is a question of primacy rather than a bright line, so a unit genuinely run as a business can fail it.
Section 12 (2) paragraph 7 removes the argument entirely for one case: a place where home child care is provided is a prohibited place "whether or not children are present", with no dwelling carve-out attached.
And the protection is defeasible by regulation rather than entrenched, because section 12 (2) paragraph 10 reaches "A prescribed place or area, or a place or area that belongs to a prescribed class." and section 1 (2) paragraph 2 reaches "Any other prescribed place". Nothing prescribed makes the inside of a tenant's unit a prohibited place, and nothing prescribed deems any further place a private dwelling, but the power sits there.
There is also a carve-out that overrides the prohibition even in a common area. Section 19 (3) provides that no provision "of this Act or any other Act, regulation or municipal by-law that prohibits smoking in a place or area" prohibits an Indigenous person from smoking tobacco or holding lighted tobacco there where the activity is carried out for traditional Indigenous cultural or spiritual purposes, or a non-Indigenous person doing so with an Indigenous person for those purposes.
Note the width of it. That carve-out reaches past the Act and disapplies a municipal smoking by-law as well.
One case sits outside all of this, and it is an ordinary one. If you rent out a condominium unit, the corporation's declaration and rules reach inside the unit whether or not your lease says anything. The tenant is bound through the Condominium Act, 1998.
The ministry's own page puts the carve-out in the sentence that otherwise says a tenant may smoke at home: "Unless you have signed an agreement or lease or are in a condominium with bylaws that say otherwise, you are allowed to smoke or vape in your private home." Read the declaration before you draft the lease term.
And the specialty route is closed to an ordinary landlord. Section 13 (1) lets a residence operate a designated controlled area for smoking, but only where the residence is one of five listed kinds.
Those are a long-term care home, a retirement home providing care, a supportive housing residence funded through the named ministries, a designated psychiatric facility, and a designated facility for veterans. An apartment building is not on that list. You cannot build a smoking room in a rental building and rely on section 13.
Yes, and the reason is a single sentence of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 that is easy to read without noticing what it leaves out.
The gate is section 4 (1): "Subject to subsection 12.1 (11) and section 194, a provision in a tenancy agreement that is inconsistent with this Act or the regulations is void." The test is inconsistency with the Act or the regulations. It is not unfairness, and it is not whether the term is unusual.
So the question becomes whether anything in the Act or the regulations makes a no-smoking term inconsistent. Nothing in either does, and the contrast with animals is the cleanest proof available.
Section 14 reads, in its entirety: "A provision in a tenancy agreement prohibiting the presence of animals in or about the residential complex is void." One sentence, no subsections, no exception, unamended since 2006. The only noun in the operative text is "animals". The word "pet" appears only in the marginal heading, in quotation marks.
The Act then goes further for animals, which is the part worth noticing.
Section 76 (1) provides that where an application based on a section 64, 65 or 66 notice is grounded on the presence, control or behaviour of an animal, the Board "shall not make an order terminating the tenancy and evicting the tenant without being satisfied that the tenant is keeping an animal and that" one of three further things is established, including that the past behaviour of an animal of that species has substantially interfered with reasonable enjoyment, or that its presence has caused a serious allergic reaction.
So animals get a two-part bespoke regime: the term is void, and an eviction grounded on an animal faces an extra statutory gate. Smoking gets neither. There is no section 14 analogue and no section 76 analogue.
That is an argument from the statute's own architecture rather than an inference about what the legislature meant. It is why a no-smoking term survives section 4 (1) while a no-pets term does not. We walk through the animals side of that contrast in our post on whether a landlord can say no pets in Ontario.
One statute does qualify the answer, and the Act singles it out. Section 3 (4) provides that "If a provision of this Act conflicts with a provision of another Act, other than the Human Rights Code, the provision of this Act applies." The Human Rights Code is the one statute the Act stands back from.
A tenant who says their smoking is tied to a disability, including an addiction, raises a duty to accommodate short of undue hardship. That argument runs against the term rather than against the Act. The standard lease says the same thing in its own words, as set out below. So the accurate statement is that a no-smoking term is enforceable in principle and still has to survive the Code in the individual case.
The standard lease assumes the same thing. Section 10 of the Residential Tenancy Agreement (Standard Form of Lease), form 2229E (2020/12), opens with a statement of law, "Under provincial law, smoking is not allowed in any indoor common areas of the building.", then offers the parties a choice between "None" and "Smoking rules" with a free-text description, and closes with a note that in making and enforcing smoking rules the landlord must follow the Ontario Human Rights Code.
A provenance note on that quotation, and it applies to the lease form alone among the sources on this page. The form is published only as a PDF and we could not read it in a browser. The wording above comes from a single text extraction of the static PDF rather than from a direct reading. Every other source quoted on this page was read in a browser at the publisher on 2026-10-08.
One trap sits in the publisher's own guidance. The provincial guide to the standard lease, stamped "Updated: October 27, 2025", renders the same sentence with five extra words: "smoking is not allowed in any indoor common areas of the building outside of the rental unit".
The gloss is correct as a statement of effect, but it is not what the form says. If you are quoting the lease, quote the lease. We go through the rest of the form in our post on whether you have to use the Ontario standard lease.
Two cautions on drafting. First, section 4 of O. Reg. 9/18 provides at paragraph 2 that a tenancy agreement "may include additional terms but only if those terms are not inconsistent with the mandatory terms set out in the prescribed form of tenancy agreement described in section 3, and any such additional term included in the tenancy agreement that is inconsistent with those mandatory terms is void." So an additional term has two things to survive, not one.
Second, section 134 (1), which opens "Unless otherwise prescribed,", prohibits a landlord at clause (a) from collecting or requiring "a fee, premium, commission, bonus, penalty, key deposit or other like amount of money whether or not the money is refundable". A no-smoking clause carrying a monetary penalty for breach is a different problem from the prohibition itself, and the penalty half of it is the half that fails.
The Act is silent, and we want to be precise about what that means. Silence is not the same as permission, and it is not the same as prohibition.
One exception has to come first, because it is a real landlord rule-making power and it is in the Act. Section 154 (1) provides that if a landlord establishes rules for a mobile home park, the landlord "shall provide a written copy of the rules to each tenant" and "shall inform each tenant in writing of any change to the rules".
Section 152 applies Part X to mobile home parks and, with necessary modifications, to land lease communities. Section 3 (3) gives Part X priority where it conflicts with another Part. So in a park or a land lease community a landlord can change the rules on written notice. Everything below is about tenancies outside Part X.
For those, we searched the statute for the machinery you would expect if a landlord had a general rule-making power: "rules of the residential complex", "house rules", "amend the tenancy agreement", "vary the terms", "change the terms", "alter the terms" and "new term". Every one of them returns zero. The single occurrence of "unilateral" in the whole Act is in section 142 (2), a care home provision that lets a tenant revoke a condition, which is not a landlord power and not a general one.
What the Act does supply points one way. Section 2 (1) defines a tenancy agreement as "a written, oral or implied agreement between a tenant and a landlord for occupancy of a rental unit and includes a licence to occupy a rental unit", which is bilateral on its face.
Section 38 (1) provides that where a fixed term ends and the parties have not renewed or terminated, they are deemed to have renewed it as a monthly tenancy "containing the same terms and conditions that are in the expired tenancy agreement", subject to lawful rent increases. Terms carry forward on their own. Nothing carries a new one in.
Our own view is that outside Part X a landlord cannot impose a no-smoking rule on a sitting tenant by notice. The route is agreement to vary the term instead. That is a reading of the provisions rather than something the Act states outright, and we would rather label it than dress it up.
The practical consequence is the same either way. A no-smoking policy is something you introduce at the point of a new tenancy agreement, building by building, over turnover. It is not something you introduce by a letter under every door.
Start by ruling one out. Smoking is not an illegal act under section 61, and nothing in the Act supports treating it as one.
Section 61 (1) requires that the tenant or another occupant "commits an illegal act or carries on an illegal trade, business or occupation or permits a person to do so in the rental unit or the residential complex.", and section 61 (3) defines the drug vocabulary exclusively by reference to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (Canada). Lawful adult tobacco use and lawful adult cannabis use are neither.
Two corrections to how section 61 gets described, since we are here. It is not a drug provision. The drug definitions in subsection (3) control only the 10-day limb in section 61 (2) (a). An illegal act outside the drug limbs still grounds a section 61 notice at 20 days under clause (b).
And section 75 provides that the Board may terminate "whether or not the tenant or other person has been convicted of an offence relating to an illegal act, trade, business or occupation", so the absence of a conviction is not an answer to a section 61 notice. None of that makes smoking an illegal act. It simply means the usual shorthand is wrong on its own terms.
The route that fits is section 64. Section 64 (1) lets a landlord give notice where the conduct of the tenant, another occupant or a person permitted in the residential complex by the tenant "substantially interferes with the reasonable enjoyment of the residential complex for all usual purposes by the landlord or another tenant or substantially interferes with another lawful right, privilege or interest of the landlord or another tenant".
Read it to the end. There are two limbs there. The second one, interference with another lawful right, privilege or interest, is the one that answers a breach of a no-smoking term in the lease.
A section 64 notice is served on an N5 and carries a 20-day termination date, grounds, and a requirement that the tenant stop the conduct within seven days. Section 64 (3) then voids the notice if the tenant stops within those seven days.
That cure right is the defining feature of this route. A tenant who stops within the seven days kills the notice. The first N5 is therefore a mechanism for getting the conduct to stop, rather than a step that has to end at a hearing. Our guide to which eviction notices a tenant can cancel by fixing the problem sets out how the voiding mechanics work across the notice family.
Three neighbouring routes exist and each removes something you may be relying on.
Section 65 applies where the landlord resides in a building "containing not more than three residential units". The notice period drops to 10 days, and section 65 (3) disapplies section 64 (2) and (3) entirely, so there is no seven-day cure.
Note the exact words, and one of them matters more than the unit count. Section 65 (1) protects the reasonable enjoyment of the building "by the landlord" and another lawful right "of the landlord", where section 64 (1) reads "by the landlord or another tenant" in both limbs.
So in a three-unit building a complaint from the other tenant about drifting smoke does not ground a section 65 notice. You are back on section 64, with its 20 days and its cure. The rest of the wording repays care too. It is residential units rather than rental units, the landlord's own unit counts toward the three, and the landlord has to actually reside there.
Section 66 is the safety route. It applies where an act or omission "seriously impairs or has seriously impaired the safety of any person" and the act or omission occurs in the residential complex. Both limbs are required.
The termination date is not earlier than the 10th day after the notice is given, and there is no cure right anywhere in section 66. Smoking in bed after a documented fire incident is a different conversation from smoke drifting through a vent, and the Act treats them differently.
Section 62 and section 63 cover damage. Section 62 requires that the conduct "wilfully or negligently causes undue damage", carries a 20-day date and a seven-day repair-or-pay cure under section 62 (3).
Section 63 drops the date to 10 days, and section 63 (3) disapplies section 62 (2) and (3), so again there is no cure. Section 63 has two limbs and the second is the one to read on a smoking file.
Clause (a) is wilful undue damage. Clause (b) is not.
Clause (b) requires no wilfulness at all, and catches using the unit "in a manner that is inconsistent with use as residential premises and that causes or can reasonably be expected to cause damage that is significantly greater than the damage that is required in order to give a notice of termination under clause (a) or subsection 62 (1)." Nicotine staining on ceilings and in ductwork is where a smoking file turns into a damage file. Decide which one you are running before you serve anything.
There is also a route that does not involve ending anything, and on a nicotine damage file it is the cheapest thing available. Section 89 (1) lets a landlord apply for an order requiring a tenant or former tenant to pay reasonable costs of repair or replacement where the tenant "wilfully or negligently causes or caused undue damage" while in possession.
It is the same substantive threshold as section 62 (1), with no notice to serve, no termination and no eviction to justify. If what you actually want is the cost of the ceilings, that is the application to look at first.
One sequencing provision is easy to miss. Section 68 lets you give notice on a second incident, but the two lists inside it are different. The first notice must have been under section 62, 64 or 67. The second event must constitute grounds under section 60, 61, 62, 64 or 67. Sections 63, 65 and 66 are in neither list.
So a 10-day notice under section 65 does not start a section 68 clock, and a section 66 safety notice does not either. There is a window as well as a list. Clause 68 (1) (b) requires the second event to happen "more than seven days but less than six months after the notice mentioned in clause (a) was given", so an incident on day three does not count and neither does one in month seven.
One more deadline closes the section. Section 69 (2) provides that an application on a notice of termination "may not be made later than 30 days after the termination date specified in the notice". A notice you never file on expires.
This is the complaint that actually arrives, and it arrives from the other side of a wall.
The province's own guidance is worth quoting, because it is the closest thing to a published answer. The Ministry of Health page on where you cannot smoke or vape in Ontario, stamped "Updated: May 05, 2026", says this under the heading for second-hand smoke in rental units: "Unless you have signed an agreement or lease or are in a condominium with bylaws that say otherwise, you are allowed to smoke or vape in your private home."
It goes on to tell a complaining tenant to speak to the landlord first, then to contact the Landlord and Tenant Board, and it says plainly that the tenant "will be asked to show how the other tenant's smoking or vaping is interfering with your reasonable enjoyment" and that "Each application is determined by the Board on a case-by-case basis."
The same page carries a short section headed for landlords, saying that under the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 a landlord may apply to evict a tenant if their smoking interferes with the reasonable enjoyment of other tenants or seriously impairs safety. That is the section 64 and section 66 pair described above, in the ministry's words.
Now the exposure running the other way, because a complaint about a neighbour's smoke is also a complaint about your building.
Section 22 provides that a landlord "shall not at any time during a tenant's occupancy of a rental unit and before the day on which an order evicting the tenant is executed substantially interfere with the reasonable enjoyment of the rental unit or the residential complex in which it is located for all usual purposes by a tenant or members of his or her household".
Section 20 (1) separately makes the landlord responsible for maintaining the complex "in a good state of repair and fit for habitation and for complying with health, safety, housing and maintenance standards", and section 20 (2) forecloses the argument that the tenant knew about the problem before signing.
A tenant who says smoke is coming through the wall has two doors into the Board. Paragraph 1 of section 29 (1) is the repair route. Section 30 (1) then gives the Board nine remedies on it. They run from terminating the tenancy and ordering an abatement of rent through to ordering specified work within a specified time and prohibiting a rent increase until it is done, and paragraph 9 is a catch-all, "Make any other order that it considers appropriate."
Paragraph 3 of section 29 (1) is the substantial interference route, and section 31 (1) is the remedy list that attaches to it, including an abatement, an order that the conduct stop, and under clause (d) an order that the landlord pay the Board "an administrative fine not exceeding the greater of $10,000 and the monetary jurisdiction of the Small Claims Court".
That is the Act's formula rather than a figure, and the second term is set by regulation outside the Act, so it moves without the Act changing a word. Section 29 (2) gives the tenant one year from the conduct. One provision runs the owner's way and is worth knowing before a hearing.
Section 30 (2) requires that in determining the remedy the Board "shall consider whether the tenant or former tenant advised the landlord of the alleged breaches before applying to the Board." A complaint you never received is a point you can make.
The practical reading is simple. An unsealed shared wall, a common return-air system or a gap around a plumbing stack can turn one tenant's lawful conduct inside their own unit into your maintenance problem. Sealing penetrations and separating ventilation is cheaper than an abatement, and it is work you control.
Here is the part that is easy to miss, and it is a drafting difference between two adjacent sections.
The Smoke-Free Ontario Act, 2017 never uses the word "landlord". Not once. But section 15 binds "Every proprietor of an enclosed public place or other place or area mentioned in subsection 12 (2)", and "proprietor" is defined as "the owner, operator or person in charge". An indoor common area is a place mentioned in subsection 12 (2). On the plain words, the owner of the building is the proprietor of its common areas.
Section 15 then imposes six duties: ensure compliance with section 12 (1); give notice to each person in the place of the prohibitions; post any prescribed signs "throughout the enclosed public place, place or area, including washrooms, in the prescribed manner"; ensure no ashtrays or similar equipment remain; ensure that a person who refuses to comply does not remain in the place; and ensure compliance with any other prescribed obligations.
"In the prescribed manner" is doing real work there, and it is prescribed in O. Reg. 268/18, read at e-Laws on 2026-10-08 on a consolidation period beginning 2023-09-25.
Section 16 requires a proprietor to post both of two signs, or one combined sign, "at each entrance and exit of the enclosed public place, place or area in appropriate locations and in sufficient numbers to ensure that the public are aware that smoking and the use of electronic cigarettes is prohibited in the enclosed public place, place or area:".
The two single-subject signs are the "Tobacco Sign for Proprietors" and the "Electronic Cigarette Sign for Proprietors", each dated April 1, 2020 and each at least 10 centimetres by 10 centimetres. The combined alternative is the "Tobacco and Electronic Cigarette Sign for Proprietors", at least 15 centimetres high by 20 centimetres wide.
Two practical points sit beside it. Section 12 (1) of the regulation requires that signs "shall be posted in a conspicuous manner and shall not be obstructed from view", so a notice behind a board flap is not posted. Section 12 (2) is the relief: it is enough to copy the information and the informational symbols without reproducing the Trillium or "Smoke-Free" logo at all. The test is entrances, exits and washrooms, not a single sign in the lobby.
Compare section 14 (1), which places near-identical duties on an employer but only "with respect to an enclosed workplace or other place or area mentioned in subsection 12 (2) over which the employer exercises control". Section 15 carries no control qualifier at all. The contrast between the two is deliberate and it is the point: the proprietor's duty is not conditioned on control.
The penalties are where this becomes an owner's problem rather than a tenant's. Under the tables to section 21, a person who contravenes section 12 (1), which is the act of smoking itself, faces a maximum of $1,000 on a first conviction and $5,000 thereafter, and the corporate column for that row reads "not applicable".
A failure of the section 15 duties other than the signs duty carries a maximum of $1,000 for an individual and $100,000 for a corporation on a first conviction. Those rise to $5,000 and $300,000 on a subsequent one.
The signs duty is worse again, and for a structural reason. Section 21 (2) makes a conviction under clause 15 (c) liable to the fine "for each day or part of a day on which the offence occurs or continues".
On the non-tobacco table the corporate maximum for that row climbs from $5,000 with no earlier convictions to $10,000, $25,000 and $75,000 at one, two and three or more. Those are per-day figures.
Section 21 (3) decides where on that ladder you sit, and it is narrower than it looks: the step is set by "the number of times the defendant has been convicted of the same offence during the five years preceding the current conviction." An incorporated owner who never put up signs is exposed to an order of magnitude more than the tenant who was smoking in the lobby.
One structure on the property deserves its own warning, because owners build it believing they are creating a permitted area.
Section 10 of O. Reg. 268/18 prescribes a place for the purposes of section 12 (2) paragraph 10 where three conditions are met: the public is ordinarily invited or permitted access, or the place is "worked in or frequented by employees during the course of their employment whether or not they are acting in the course of their employment at the time"; the place "has a roof and more than two walls"; and it "is not primarily a private dwelling".
A roofed, three-walled smoking shelter that your superintendent or cleaner passes through meets all three. It is then a place mentioned in section 12 (2), smoking in it is prohibited, and your section 15 duties, signs included, attach to it.
The regulation gives something back on playgrounds.
Section 8 (2) paragraph 3 excludes from the children's playground rule an area that "is not part of the amenities provided by a residential location, such as, but without being limited to, an apartment or condominium complex or a campground." So a play structure that belongs to your building is not a prescribed area and the 20-metre perimeter does not run from it. You can still make it a lease term, but do not post it as the law.
One section looks like relief and is not. Section 21 (11) carries the marginal heading "Owner's liability" and provides a due diligence defence, but it is confined to contraventions of sections 3, 4, 4.1, 4.2, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, which are sale, supply, display and packaging offences. Sections 12, 14 and 15 are not in that list. There is no deemed-liability-with-due-diligence structure for the smoking prohibitions, and an owner reading the heading alone will think there is.
Enforcement is by inspectors appointed by the Minister under section 20 (1) of that Act, and section 20 (2) lets an inspector enter and inspect "without a warrant or notice, and at any time" any place where a section 12 prohibition applies. Your common areas are squarely inside that.
Your tenant's unit is not: section 20 (4) provides that an inspector "shall not enter into a place or part of a place that is a dwelling, without the consent of the occupant", and section 20 (5) adds that an inspector "is not entitled to use force to enter and inspect a place". There is no warrant route for a dwelling anywhere in the Act, so a tenant who declines ends the inspection.
For where it may be smoked, no. The Cannabis Control Act, 2017 says nothing about it. We read the consolidation at e-Laws on 2026-10-08, on a period beginning 2025-01-01, and the counts for "smoke", "smok", "vap", "public place" and "enclos" are all zero.
Cannabis smoking locations are governed by section 12 (1) paragraph 2 of the Smoke-Free Ontario Act, 2017, "Smoke or hold lighted cannabis", and by the same list of ten places. Neither Act cites the other, and the only cannabis cross-reference in the Smoke-Free Act is to the federal Cannabis Act for the definition of cannabis.
For what a landlord may be charged with, cannabis changes the answer completely, and this is the one provision on this subject that names you.
Section 13 of the Cannabis Control Act, 2017 is headed "Landlords" and reads: "No person shall knowingly permit a premises of which he or she is a landlord to be used in relation to an activity prohibited by section 6."
Subsection (2) supplies a defence: "It is a defence to a charge under subsection (1) that the defendant took reasonable measures to prevent the activity." Subsection (3) defines landlord for that section as "a person who is a lessor, owner or person permitting the occupation of the premises, and includes an owner of a premises that has not been vacated by the tenant despite the expiry of the tenant's lease or right of occupation".
Be precise about what section 13 catches, because the heading reads far wider than the text. It is tied to section 6 and nothing else. Section 6 prohibits selling cannabis other than as an authorized retailer, and distributing cannabis that is sold or intended to be sold other than by one. It is an illegal dispensary provision. It is not a duty to stop your tenant smoking, growing or possessing.
The penalties are the largest on this page by a wide margin, and they are the only ones with a floor. Under section 23 (2), an individual convicted of contravening section 13 is liable on a first conviction to a fine "of at least $10,000 and not more than $250,000 or to imprisonment for a term of not more than two years less a day, or both".
Under section 23 (3), a corporation faces "at least $25,000 and not more than $1,000,000" on a first conviction. Subsequent convictions run per day.
And the building can be closed before anything is proved. Section 18 (2) provides that where a charge is laid under section 13, a police officer "may cause the premises that is the subject of the alleged contravention to be closed immediately and that any persons on the premises be removed".
Section 18 (3) is what keeps it closed, requiring a police officer to bar entry to all entrances "until the final disposition of the charge", with section 18 (3.1) prohibiting anyone from entering and section 18 (3.2) excepting emergency responders in exigent circumstances.
The way out under section 18 (4) is an application to the Superior Court of Justice, and where the applicant is the person charged the court requires a cash bond "for $10,000 or such greater amount as the court may specify". Note that "premises" is defined to include "part of a premises", so the closed premises can be one unit rather than the whole building.
The useful reading of section 13 is that the defence in subsection (2) rewards the owner who was paying attention. "Knowingly permit" is not strict liability, and "took reasonable measures to prevent the activity" is a question about your records. Inspection logs, answered complaints and a documented response to an odd utility bill or an unexplained ventilation change are what that defence is made of.
Two smaller cannabis points. Section 13.1 (1), in force 2025-01-01, prohibits cultivating, propagating or harvesting cannabis "in a dwelling in which child care, as defined in the Child Care and Early Years Act, 2014, is provided", with an exception for in-home services. And the four-plant limit is federal. The words "plant" and "plants" appear zero times in the Ontario Act, so do not cite the Cannabis Control Act, 2017 for it.
Five things, in the order they pay for themselves.
Put the rule in section 10 of the standard lease at the start of every new tenancy rather than in an attachment. Describe it in plain terms that say what is prohibited and where. Section 10 is the place the form provides for it, and a term that lives where the form expects it has one less argument to survive.
Post the prescribed signs at each entrance and exit, and in the washrooms, and keep them unobstructed. Lobby-only is not what O. Reg. 268/18 section 16 asks for. The signs duty is the one with the per-day fine and the escalating corporate maximum, and it is the cheapest item on this list by a distance. Check any roofed shelter on the property while you are at it.
Deal with the building fabric. A sealed penetration, a separated return-air path and a working door sweep answer a second-hand smoke complaint without a notice to anyone. They also move the problem out of RTA section 20 (1) territory.
Decide early which file you are running. A complaint about drifting smoke is a section 64 file with a seven-day cure. Stained ceilings and ductwork are a section 62 or section 63 damage file, or a section 89 money claim if what you want is the cost rather than the unit. A fire incident is a section 66 file with no cure and a 10-day date. Serving the wrong one can cost you the notice and the application.
And keep the records that the Cannabis Control Act defence is made of. They are the same records that make a section 64 application work: dated complaints in writing, your written response, what you inspected and when.
KEILTY Realty Management has been managing Ontario rentals since 2003. Smoking policy is one of the things we set once and then enforce consistently across a portfolio. That consistency is the part that is hard to do one building at a time.
Can a landlord ban smoking in an Ontario rental unit? Yes, by a term in the tenancy agreement. The Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 voids a no-animals term by name in section 14 and creates no equivalent for smoking, so a no-smoking term survives the section 4 (1) test. Section 10 of the standard lease is the place provided for it.
Is smoking already banned in apartment buildings in Ontario? Only in the common areas. Section 12 (2) paragraph 5 of the Smoke-Free Ontario Act, 2017 bans smoking and vaping in any indoor common area of a condominium, apartment building or university or college residence. The Act does not reach inside a private unit.
Can you evict a tenant for smoking in Ontario? You can serve a notice under section 64 where the smoking substantially interferes with reasonable enjoyment or with another lawful right of the landlord or another tenant. The tenant then has seven days to stop before the notice is void. Section 66 applies instead where safety is seriously impaired, at 10 days and with no cure right.
Can a landlord add a no-smoking rule part way through a tenancy? Outside Part X the Act is silent and gives a landlord no general rule-making power. Section 38 (1) carries the existing terms forward on renewal, so our reading is that a new term needs the tenant's agreement rather than a notice. In a mobile home park or land lease community section 154 is different, and the landlord may change the rules on written notice.
What is a landlord's own exposure under the smoking legislation? Section 15 of the Smoke-Free Ontario Act, 2017 binds every "proprietor", defined as the owner, operator or person in charge, so on the plain words a building owner carries the common-area duties, including posting the prescribed signs at each entrance and exit. The signs offence is charged for each day it continues, and the corporate maximum rises with earlier convictions in the preceding five years.
Not sure whether your leases carry a workable smoking term, or whether your buildings are signed the way the Act requires? Get in touch and we will go through it with you.
This post is general information about Ontario residential tenancy law as of 2026-10-08, not legal advice. Legislation, regulations and tribunal practice change. For advice on a specific property or situation, speak with a lawyer or licensed paralegal.
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