First Day Of Smoking Ban Enforcement Brings 100 Complaints

POSTED: 10:50 am EDT May 4, 2007 AP

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The Ohio Department of Health said it received 100 complaints about potential violators Thursday as the state began enforcing its smoking ban.

The law that voters approved in November bars smoking in most indoor public places and work sites. It took effect Dec. 7, but implementation was delayed while state officials drew up rules for carrying out the ban.

Smokers or businesses that ignore it face fines of up to 2,500 for repeat violations. But first, there are warning letters, if local health authorities check out the reports and do find the law is being broken.

EVERYONE should complain. I want a list of ever bar in Ohio. Lets complain about each and evey single one. They will never be able to check them all.. How will they deterimine which are real and which are false... Since it will be anonymous and alll

Study: Outdoor smoke gets in your lungs

By Liz Szabo, USA TODAY
People may inhale high levels of secondhand smoke even on outside patios and sidewalk cafes, a new study shows.
The U.S. surgeon general has found that indoor secondhand smoke kills nearly 50,000 non-smokers a year. Authors say their paper, in the May issue of the Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, is one of the first published studies to show that outdoor cigarette smoke could pose a risk.

Stanford University researchers set up air monitors at 10 spots near campus. They focused on particles found in smoke, called particulate matter-2.5, which are about 30 times narrower than a human hair. These microscopic particles, some of which can cause cancer, are able to penetrate deep inside the lungs, the study shows. It was financed by the state of California and the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute.

Clean air typically has fewer than 20 micrograms per cubic meter of such particles, but outdoor smoke plumes may have more than 1,000 micrograms, says lead author Neil Klepeis of Stanford. Someone who sits within 2 feet of a single cigarette at an outdoor cafe could inhale as much pollution as in a smoky tavern, Klepeis says.

Michael McFadden of The Smokers Club, an Internet-based group that advocates smokers' and property rights, says people rarely sit that close together in restaurants. "That would have to be a very small table," McFadden says.

Klepeis notes that restaurant workers often get very close to customers while taking orders and serving food. And patrons who breathe in secondhand smoke from several cigarettes over a few hours could be exposed to average daily levels higher than those considered safe by the Environmental Protection Agency, he says.

Indoor smoke can linger for hours, but researchers found that outdoor smoke disappears shortly after a cigarette is extinguished. People can protect themselves by staying upwind from smoke or by sitting at least 6 feet away from a single smoker, Klepeis says, or further away from a group of smokers.

James Repace, a visiting assistant clinical professor at the Tufts University School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study, says the report helps establish a scientific basis for laws restricting outdoor tobacco use. More than 1,000 communities now restrict outdoor smoking, according to the American Non-smokers' Rights Foundation. More than 500 curtail smoking in parks, beaches and other outdoor spots. Others curb smoking near doors, ventilation systems, automated teller machines and even movie lines.

Some question the need to regulate outdoor smoke.

"If you burn anything, the smoke contains hundreds of noxious particles," Simon Chapman, editor of the journal Tobacco Control and a professor at the University of Sydney's School of Public Health, says in an e-mail. He notes that "people get brief exposures to intense plumes of noxious smoke from barbecues, campfires and home cooking, yet we don't ban those."