Smokers throughout Illinois soon will have to step outside or into a private setting to light up after Gov. Blagojevich on Monday signed into law a smoking ban that extends to nearly all public places across the state.
The governor’s action, which state health officials said makes Illinois the 19th state with a broad smoking ban, culminated nearly two decades of intense efforts by anti-smoking advocates to curtail smoking in public.
The law will take effect Jan. 1, 2008, stitching together a patchwork of local smoking bans passed mostly in the Chicago area in recent years. Chicago’s smoking ban took effect Jan. 16, 2006, and covered areas including restaurants, CTA train platforms and bingo halls. But free-standing bars and restaurants with bar areas were given until July 1, 2008, to shoo smokers outside. The state law would hasten that ban by six months.
Blagojevich scrawled his signature on the bill at Northwestern Memorial Hospital amid hundreds of joyous medical professionals, cancer survivors, health advocates and other anti-smoking crusaders. They said this day was a long time coming after years of lobbying local village councils, small-town and big-city mayors, state lawmakers and, finally, the governor.
“For me, this has been a 30-year battle,” said an emotional Barb Nation, a Springfield resident who lost part of her lung to a tumor that her doctor told her resulted from secondhand smoke in the workplace. “This is a new day, an amazing day.”
Yet as the anti-smoking advocates cheered and hugged one another, tavern owners and smokers across Illinois had quite a different reaction. Bar managers criticized lawmakers for succumbing to political pressure that they said almost certainly will hurt, if not destroy, some of their businesses.
They were heartened, however, that the ban would extend across the state instead of being targeted to specific locales. Currently, 44 communities have smoking bans, and bar owners in no-public smoking areas have complained that smokers are traveling out of town to hoist a beer and light up a cigarette.
At Jake Moran’s pub in Mundelein, which allows smoking, response to the ban among the 10 or so patrons ranged from the merely angry to the unprintable.
“It’s the General Assembly being our new nanny,” said Wally Degner, 70, of Palatine, a pipe smoker for 50 years. “After this they’ll ban foods that are too fatty. You’ll have to ask the state what you can eat and drink — they’ll start regulating hamburgers.”
John Szopa, 23, said bars likely will lose his business once they go smoke-free. Szopa, of Lincoln Park, said he smokes a pack a day on weekdays and more during weekends.
“That’s part of the reason I like going to bars,” Szopa told RedEye. “If I can’t smoke, I’ll probably stay home.”
The law will prohibit smoking in all public buildings and in most businesses and government vehicles. Smoking will be illegal in bars and restaurants, as well as places ranging from student dormitories to private homes in which businesses open to the public are operated.
Local communities still are free to pass more stringent no-smoking bans with those local rules superseding the state law, named by legislators as the Smoke Free Illinois Act.
Blagojevich said it took little persuasion for him to back the legislation.
“This law will save lives,” the governor said. “The realities are that smoking kills people. … My only regret is that this took so long.”
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THE DETAILS
So, where can you smoke?
The statewide ban that takes effect Jan. 1 doesn’t include many exceptions for smokers searching for places to light up.
– They can smoke in a private home, as long as there isn’t a day-care or other business that’s open to the public operating from the same space.
– They can smoke in designated rooms in nursing homes and hotels, according to the law.
– They can smoke in tobacco stores, as long as 80 percent of the store’s revenue comes from the sale of tobacco.
Places long associated with smoker-friendly policies — casinos, bars and private clubs such as VFWs and American Legions — all will be smoke-free.
Even outside spaces aren’t a free-for-all. The law requires that smokers remain 15 feet away from the doors and windows of a public place. Some Illinois hospitals have banned smoking anywhere on hospital property.
Fines range from $100 to $250 for individuals and $250 for businesses the first time they are cited.
— Tribune [ Chase Agnello-Dean/RedEye photo ]
