City OKs Smoking Ban, Exempts Bars Until 2008

CHICAGO — Chicago, aiming to follow the lead of other major U.S. cities, passed a law on Wednesday to ban smoking in most buildings and public spaces except for bars, where smokers can puff away until mid-2008.

Until the City Council action, Chicago was the largest U.S. city that had not tackled the second-hand smoke issue. Lawmakers approved a compromise that gave taverns as well as bars attached to restaurants until July 1, 2008, to comply with the no-smoking ban.

Retail tobacco stores, private clubs or lodges, selected hotel rooms, and private residences were also exempted from the ban that takes effect on January 16. Mayor Richard Daley supports the measure.

Dozens of U.S. municipalities and several states, including New York and California, have banned smoking in most indoor spaces, including bars and restaurants. Last year, Ireland enacted a smoking ban in workplaces that included pubs. One of the few confessed cigarette smokers on Chicago City Council said he supported the ordinance but questioned the wisdom of sending smokers out into Chicago's dreaded winter cold and keeping them 15 feet away from building entrances to partake.

"It's 20 degrees below zero and people are standing outside smoking," Alderman William Beavers quipped. "Are you going to kill us with pneumonia?"

The debate pitted many bar owners and restaurateurs such as former pro football great Mike Ditka against public interest groups such as the American Cancer Society that argued second-hand smoke was a known killer. Business interests pleaded smokers would go elsewhere, while supporters of the ban pointed to the experiences of many proprietors in New York and Los Angeles who said patrons generally adapted to smoking bans.

Before the 45-1 council vote, Alderman Bernie Stone said he had quit a three-pack-a-day cigarette habit 27 years ago and then sang a song intoning the evils of cigarettes, whiskey and "wild women," to which the mayor cracked, "They're next."

Chicago's ordinance, first introduced in the council a decade ago but blocked by business interests, reads that if bar owners can prove an air filtration system clears ambient smoke— something the law's supporters considered unlikely— then smoking will be permitted in perpetuity.