Bars, eateries prep for smoking ban

Publication Date: 2008-08-23

• Author:Sam Kusic
• Publication:Indiana County (PA) Gazette

Pennsylvania's smoking ban becomes effective Sept. 11.

Maybe you'll breathe a sigh of relief.

Or maybe you'll breathe a sigh of despair.

Either way, maybe you'll breathe easy, which is what the state legislature intended when it passed the ban, officially the Clean Indoor Air Act, that was signed into law in June.

The law makes it illegal to smoke inside public places. So having a cigarette inside shopping malls, stores, schools, gymnasiums, ice skating rinks, airports, bus terminals, train stations, hospitals, restaurants-especially ones that don't serve alcohol-will not be permitted.

The law also makes it illegal to smoke anywhere inside at work, no matter whether the work is in a high-rise office building, a store, a machine shop or an enclosed construction site.

It sounds pervasive, but given 12 exceptions to the rule and given that many places decided to prohibit smoking well before the state did, smokers and nonsmokers alike may not notice much of a difference, if Indiana and White Township establishments are any example.