A condo or co-op is owned by the co-owners, so I'd imagine that the co-owners would have to pass non-smoking covenants to their by-laws;
You imagine wrong.

Per their Master Deed, the co-owners have an exclusive right to occupy their unit and they also have an undivided and inseparable right to share with the other co-owners the use and enjoyment of the common elements, which excludes the individual units.

The Use and Occupancy Restrictions section of their Bylaws is used to regulate specific activities on the common elements and within the individual units. This section always prohibits any unlawful activity within the units, as well as on the common elements. Last I checked, it was still legal to smoke within a private residence and on private property such as the condominium grounds. The further regulation of any legal activity within the individual units has to be based on whether it:

  • negatively impacts the visual appearance of the units from the common elements
  • is loud enough to be an annoyance to other co-owners
  • poses an insurance risk such that it impacts the cost of the Association's insurance policy, in which case the Bylaws can only require the co-owner to pay for incremental insurance premium costs. However, legal smoking within individual units is already priced in the premium costs, so the co-owners cannot use this method to regulate smoking within individual units.