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• Caribbean's toughest smoking ban coming to Puerto Rico 

Night after night for almost seven years Loraine Cardona inhaled clouds of acrid cigar and cigarette smoke at the Diamond Palace Casino in Condado, San Juan's hip tourist district. A supervisor at the blackjack tables, Cardona wheezed though bouts of bronchitis, pneumonia and asthma, while players puffed into the wee hours of the night.

''If there were seven players in front of me, four of them would be smoking. It was as if I were smoking four cigarettes at once,'' said Cardona, 34. ''My skin smelled like nicotine.''

The smoke hung so heavy that managers at the Diamond Palace took a gamble of their own and banned smoking six months ago. In March, however, all of the island's restaurants, bars and its 17 other casinos will follow the Diamond's suit. Touted as the Caribbean's toughest smoking ban, Puerto Rico's ''clean air act'' not only prohibits smoking in enclosed public areas, but also in private cars carrying children under 13 and in open-air terraces or outdoor bars with one or more employees.

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