‘Vegan landlord’ is looking for a tenant for a sunny apartment. There’s a catch.

The list of real estate properties that briefly appeared in Brooklyn last week sounded tempting: two spacious, full-floor sunlit apartments in a grand brick Fort Greene townhome with spectacular outdoor spaces and period details.

The “wonderful vegan landlord,” the real estate agent wrote, had only one house rule: “no meat/fish in the building.”

Even in a city where renters pay mansion-like prices to live in an apartment with a bathtub in the kitchen or a studio so narrow you can touch both walls at once, the meatless walk is unusual.

But at a Sunday open house by appointment, the steady stream of potential renters — only a few of whom said they were vegetarians — indicated the rule wasn’t an automatic deal breaker. (Apparently neither was the price: The apartments, both one-bedroom, rent for $4,500 and $5,750.)

The real estate agent, Andrea Kelly, explained to a potential client that carnivores were not banned; cooking meat and fish. “Not only is it vegetarian, but the owner lives in the building and doesn’t want the smell of cooked meat wafting up,” she said.

So sushi, steak tartare and takeout: yes. Fry chicken: absolutely not.

The owner, Michal Arieh Lerer, declined to speak to a reporter, and Ms. Kelly and her employers at Douglas Elliman declined to comment. But Ms Lerer’s ex-husband, who co-owns the building and is also a vegan, said they had both refused to rent to carnivores who cook since they bought the house in 2007.

“It’s not about discrimination,” said the ex-husband, Motti Lerer. “You have to fit into the building.”

This all begs the question: is this legal?

It looks like it. The city’s human rights law lists 14 characteristics that landlords should not consider when deciding whether or not to rent an apartment to anyone, including age, race, family status, job, source of income, and sexual orientation. Fondness for burgers is not one of them.

It is this “permitted-unless-specifically-prohibited” construction of the anti-discrimination law that makes it perfectly legal for landlords to refuse to rent to smokers – they are not a protected class either.

Lucas A. Ferrara, an adjunct professor at New York Law School and co-author of the multi-part book “Landlord and Tenant Practice in New York,” said a prospective tenant could challenge the meat ban if, for example, they showed them had a medical condition that required some sort of “reasonable accommodation” from the landlord.

“Without an exception of that type,” wrote Mr. Ferrara, “the restriction would otherwise be allowed.”

The listing that mentioned the line on nextdoor.com was removed on Friday, the day after it was posted, but Douglas Elliman still mentions the apartments on its own site, but without mentioning the meat policy. The listings do state “Cats welcome on a case-by-case basis (only one please).”

A curious couple who knew nothing about the meat rule hesitated when they heard about it.

“Oh, we don’t meet those requirements,” said the woman, Tessa Ruben.

Then she and her partner, Darien Ghasemi, thought a little further.

“We order a lot anyway,” says Ms. Ruben, 29, who works for a nonprofit.

“The terrace looks cool,” says 31-year-old Mr Ghasemi, who works in sales.

They could not enter the building because they did not have an appointment to view the apartments. After some more discussion, they decided this was probably for the best.

“What makes me more nervous than the rule itself,” Ms. Ruben said, “is knowing that there’s someone upstairs to make sure you stick to it.”