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NC smoking ban for restaurants, bars signals another shift in state's tobacco history 

In dozens of states, Gary Richards wouldn't have been able to light up a Marlboro before tucking into his meat-lover's pizza, as he did at Satisfaction Restaurant & Bar this week. But in North Carolina, the nation's leading tobacco producer, limits on indoor smoking have lagged behind those in much of the country.

That changes Saturday, when smoking in restaurants and bars is banned in the state that is home to two major tobacco companies and where the golden leaf helped build Duke and Wake Forest universities.

"There's smokers and there's nonsmokers. We've gotten along in the past," Richards, 52, said this week during a pre-meal smoke at the restaurant inside a former tobacco warehouse. "Why can't I come in here and have my beer and a couple of slices of pizza and a cigarette?"

The dangers of secondhand smoke to employee health and complaints from patrons about the smell finally won out when the Legislature approved the ban in 2009 after years of failures.

"This law doesn't tell anybody they shouldn't smoke," said state Rep. Hugh Holliman, a lung cancer survivor whose sister died of lung cancer. He led the charge for the legislation. "It's saying nonsmokers should have the same right to breathe clean air."

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