The Illinois Restaurant Association is offering to launch an "aggressive" campaign to educate restaurants on how and why to go smoke-free to head off a controversial smoking ban in Chicago.

Tips, patrons and working hours are down and layoffs are up since New York restaurants were forced to go smoke-free, according to Colleen McShane, president of the Illinois Restaurant Association.

McShane wants to avoid similar problems here at a time when the economy stinks, business travel and convention business are slow and many restaurants are struggling to stay alive.

"Chicago is unique in that we're a convention city. Chicago has an image that attracts a lot of visitors [who prefer to dine out with] the steak and the cigar," McShane said.

"In New York, they're suffering from the smoking ban. There are restaurants that are doing all right. But [at other places], sales have dropped by 20 percent . . ."

To head off a similar fate in Chicago, the Illinois Restaurant Association has offered to embark on what McShane calls a "very, very, very aggressive" educational program. McShane refused to reveal details pending negotiations with City Council Health Committee Chairman Ed Smith (28th), sponsor of the stalled Chicago smoking ban.

She would only say: "The Chicago Health Department and other health departments have recognition programs for restaurants that go smoke-free. I'd like to be able to sit down with them, work with them and link with those recognition programs. And our education programs as well would teach--give the tools to restaurants--to go smoke-free. It's a massive education campaign."

About 400 Chicago restaurants have already gone smoke-free in response to market demands.

Smith has spent the last few months attempting to forge a compromise with the Illinois Restaurant Association. He refused to say whether an education campaign would be enough to persuade him to back off.

"The ordinance is not dead. I'm committed on the ordinance that I put in. That's all I can say," he said.

The last time the Health Committee held a public hearing on the proposed anti-smoking ordinance, restaurant owners did their best to slow it down.

They warned that a Chicago-only ban would send customers fleeing to the suburbs and prompt conventions to go elsewhere.