Blaine, MN Rental Inspections: Tenant Complaint Process (2026)

Section 18-325 bars a licensee from evicting, threatening to evict, or taking any other punitive action against a tenant because that tenant made a good-faith call to law enforcement about criminal activity, suspected criminal activity, suspicious occurrences, or public safety concerns. The protection has a limit built in: it does not stop a landlord from evicting a tenant for the tenant's own unlawful conduct or for violating lease terms unrelated to contacting law enforcement. This sits alongside Blaine's disorderly-premises rules in section 18-323, which let the city manager or a designee take license action against a rental dwelling after repeated disorderly conduct there; section 18-323(g) already protects a tenant from an adverse license action tied to conduct that occurred while an eviction was pending or within 30 days of a landlord's notice to vacate.

Read together, the two sections separate a landlord's right to respond to genuine lease or law violations from retaliation aimed specifically at a tenant who reported a problem to police. A tenant whose landlord violates section 18-325 by retaliating for a police call is protected under the city's rental dwellings licensing program, and a licensee's broader conduct on the property, including how it handles tenant safety complaints, feeds into the city's disorderly-premises enforcement and rental license standing under article V of chapter 18.