Our city wants to enforce various code enforcement issues such as smoking on courthouse property. The courthouse is located within the city. Historically the County has asserted the position that we are a separate political subdivision and the city needs to "butt out" to put it nicely. I cannot seem to locate any authority. If anyone has experienced this I would appreciate your input.

The AG has opined generally that counties are subject to municipal regulatory authority in the absence of a statute denying such authority to the city. See Op. Tex. Att'y Gen. No. JC-0218 (2000) (citing other opinions involving smoking and other regulatory impositions). This flows from the fact that cities are the flip-side of counties: a county generally can't do it unless the law says it can, but a city generally can do it unless the law says it can't. The legislature so far has not seen fit to preempt much municipal regulatory authority over other local governmental entities, at least as far as the AG was concerned in 2000.