The actual property record that seemed in brief in Brooklyn final week sounded beguiling: two spacious, sun-drenched, full-floor flats in a vast brick townhome in Fort Greene with impressive outside areas and duration main points.
The “wonderful vegan landlord,” the dealer wrote, had just one space rule: “no meat/fish in the building.”
Even in a town the place renters can pay mansionesque costs to are living in an rental with a tub within the kitchen or a studio so slim you’ll be able to contact each partitions directly, the meatless walkup is abnormal.
But at a by-appointment-only open space on Sunday, the stable circulate of potential tenants — only a few of whom mentioned they have been vegetarians — indicated that the rule of thumb was once no longer an automated deal breaker. (Nor, it sounds as if, was once the fee: The flats, each one-bedrooms, are renting for $4,500 and $5,750.)
Actually, the dealer, Andrea Kelly, defined to 1 prospect, meat eaters weren’t banned; cooking meat and fish was once. “It’s not vegetarian-only, but the owner lives in the building and doesn’t want the smell of cooking meat drifting upstairs,” she mentioned.
So, sushi, steak tartare and takeout: sure. Roasting a rooster: completely no longer.
The proprietor, Michal Arieh Lerer, refused to talk to a reporter, and Ms. Kelly and her employers at Douglas Elliman declined to remark. But Ms. Lerer’s ex-husband, who co-owns the development and could also be vegan, mentioned that they each had refused to hire to carnivores who prepare dinner since purchasing the home in 2007.
“It’s not about discrimination,” mentioned the ex-husband, Motti Lerer. “You have to fit into the building.”
All of which raises the query: Is this prison?
It appears to be. The town’s Human Rights Law lists 14 characteristics that landlords don’t seem to be allowed to imagine in deciding whether or not to hire an rental to any individual, together with age, race, circle of relatives standing, task, supply of source of revenue and sexual orientation. Fondness for hamburgers isn’t one among them.
It is that this “allowed unless specifically forbidden” development of anti-discrimination legislation that makes it completely prison for landlords to refuse to hire to people who smoke — they don’t seem to be a safe magnificence both.
Lucas A. Ferrara, an accessory professor at New York Law School and co-author of the multivolume guide “Landlord and Tenant Practice in New York,” mentioned a possible tenant may be able to battle the beef ban if, for instance, they confirmed that they had a clinical situation that required some form of “reasonable accommodation” at the landlord’s section.
“Absent an exception of that type,” Mr. Ferrara wrote, “the restriction would otherwise be permissible.”
The record that discussed the rule of thumb, on nextdoor.com, was once taken down on Friday, the day after it was once posted, however Douglas Elliman nonetheless lists the apartments by itself website, regardless that with out point out of the beef coverage. The listings do word, “Cats welcome on a case-by-case basis (only one, please).”
One curious couple who didn’t know concerning the meat rule balked after they heard about it.
“Oh, we don’t fulfill those requirements,” mentioned the girl, Tessa Ruben.
Then she and her spouse, Darian Ghassemi, idea a little extra.
“We order in a lot anyway,” mentioned Ms. Ruben, 29, who works for a nonprofit.
“The terrace looks cool,” mentioned Mr. Ghassemi, 31, who works in gross sales.
They weren’t ready to get into the development as a result of they didn’t have an appointment to view the flats. After a little extra dialogue, they determined this was once most certainly for the most productive.
“What makes me more nervous than the rule itself,” Ms. Ruben mentioned, “is knowing there’s someone upstairs making sure you follow it.”