Jump to full article: Raleigh (NC) News & Observer, 2009-10-23
Author: MARK JOHNSON - Staff Writer
Intro: Some bar owners and managers across the state think they have found an escape clause in the state's new smoking ban.
State officials are about to snuff out those plans.
Ann Houston Staples, the Charlotte-based communications director for the state's anti-smoking efforts, said health officials are encountering bar operators who think that, as a private club or by becoming a private club, they can still let customers smoke.
"I'm getting spooked, because everybody I talk to said the place they go to is going to become a private club," said Staples, director of public education and communication for the Tobacco Prevention and Control Branch of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Staples is part of a team assembling an information packet that will go out in the coming weeks to businesses affected by the ban, including bars. The mailing will include a letter explaining the law and other material, such as free "No Smoking" signs.
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