by KYW's Paul Kurtz
Ashtrays will soon get tossed from break rooms, smoking lounges, diner tables, and restaurant bars across Pennsylvania, now that a statewide smoking ban is about to become law.
The legislation, nitpicked and beaten up for better than 18 months in the capitol, was signed into law Friday by Gov. Ed Rendell, who pushed for a smokefree law as a way to cut health care costs.
The law takes effect in 90 days. "Smoking" or "No smoking" signs will have to be posted just about everywhere, while first-time violators could be fined up to $250, with $1,000 the toughest fine for a repeat offender.
The bill signing took place inside the Ambler Theatre in Montgomery County. Abbler is part of state senator Stuart Greenleaf's turf, and the longtime lawmaker has been a driving force behind the "Clean Indoor Air Act." Greenleaf recalls that it's been a long time since he first introduced it in 1993:
"Ninety-five percent of all indoor facilites will be covered and protected by this legislation."
The law's reach -- most private businesses and public spaces must be smokefree -- as well as its complicated exemptions will create headaches for some business owners.
Restaurant owners will have to tell longtime diners and barflies to light up outside, or separate the bar from the restaurant. Owners and employees of small businesses from machine shops to law firms who have smoked side by side for years will have to decide whether to change their habits or break the law.
At Starters Pub near Bethlehem, the smoking section and the ashtrays at the bar will soon be gone -- and forgotten.
"We get a lot of calls from people asking if we're smokefree, so I actually see business increasing," said manager Alix Griffin.
To be sure, many Pennsylvania restaurants, hotels and other businesses, as well as state offices, have voluntarily gone smokefree in recent years. Thirty-two other states, including five of Pennsylvania's neighbors, already have some type of statewide smoking ban in place.
However, Pennsylvania's law will not be the nation's toughest: smoking can continue in numerous places such as nursing homes, where elderly residents who have smoked all their lives may be too frail to walk outside.
Casinos can keep a portion of their gambling floor open to smokers. Private clubs, such as civic and sportsmen's groups, can allow smoking. Volunteer ambulance, fire and rescue squads can allow it. Tobacco shops, too.
Some restaurant-bars will have the option of walling off the two businesses, creating separate entrances and ventilation systems, all in the same of preserving the right to smoke at the bar.
Tavern and bar owners fought hard for the exemption that will allow smoking to continue in drinking holes that have a limited food business -- defined as 20 percent or less of their gross revenue coming from on-premises food orders.
In Allegheny County and Erie, neighborhood bar owners also beat back local bans on smoking in their establishments, winning court battles.
(Photo by KYW's Ed Fischer)
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