http://www.tobacco.org/newsfeed/category/shelters.rss Latest top tobacco news headlines en-us http://media.www.loyolamaroon.com/media/storage/paper542/news/2008/10/30/News/Smoking.On.Campus.Still.Not.Enforced-3516501.shtml http://tobacco.org/news/273977.html The faculty senate approved the Student Government Association's smoking policy, after Robert Gerlich, S.J. voted in favor, breaking the tie. "I voted in favor because I support SGA's right to set a policy," Gerlich said. But, the controversy now lies in how University Police will enforce the policy. "They're being asked to enforce a policy that has not come from the board and has not come from the administration; therefore, I don't think that they think that it has much weight," Gerlich said. The senate agreed that SGA has to work within the parameters of the university to make sure that a measure like this one can be enforced. SGA President Cade Cypriano said the smoking policy is still in a formative process and is scheduled to be in effect starting Nov. 20. The policy consists of a number of designated smoking areas in different regions of the campus, Cypriano said. The Maroon ejgonzal@loyno.edu ( Eduardo Gonzalez ) Thu, 30 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Friday/National/2389508/Article/index_html http://tobacco.org/news/273775.html KUALA LUMPUR: Food outlet operators are not too happy with the latest addition to no-smoking zones. As of Wednesday, smokers are not allowed to light up at open air areas in the vicinity of shopping complexes. This includes alfresco dining areas, which according to the operators, will make customers very unhappy. A manager (who did not want to be named) from a cafe in Bangsar Village told the New Straits Times that the new ruling would affect business badly. Customers who smoke would not frequent food outlets that did not allow them to smoke, he said. "Where else are they going to be allowed to smoke if not at the dining area outside? What if it is raining outside, where will they go?." NSTP e-Media mailed@nstp.com.my Malaysia Fri, 31 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%2010%2026%20story_26-10-2008_pg7_6 http://tobacco.org/news/272865.html The Health Ministry on Saturday issued guidelines for the establishment of ‘Designated Smoking Zones’ to exclude smokers from public places and protect the health of non-smokers. The ministry has issued the guidelines under the Prohibition of Smoking and Protection of Non-Smokers’ Health Ordinance, 2002, which allows the Federal government to “issue guidelines for permitting designated smoking areas in premises or places where adequate arrangements are made to protect the health of non-smokers.” The ordinance, however, has had little compliance since its enactment. The guidelines provide that health care establishments, educational institutions, domestic flights, buses, wagons and trains will be absolutely smoke-free. The guidelines further provide that physically separate areas not exceeding one-third of the premises can be designated for smoking, specifying that a smoking area cannot be set up over the entire area of building. Daily Times Pakistan Sun, 26 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=143083 http://tobacco.org/news/272864.html Anti-tobacco activists attending a review meeting on tobacco packaging reforms in Pakistan here on Friday appealed to the president, the prime minister and the minister for health to consider withdrawing the recent statutory regulatory order allowing the establishment of designated smoking areas in the country, and to advance a step further by giving a green signal for printing of pictorial health warnings on cigarette packs. The appeal was articulated at a consultative meeting organised by TheNetwork for Consumer Protection, which has recently received a grant of US $280,000 from the Bloomberg Grant Initiative, New York, to implement a project on 'Policy Advocacy and Stakeholder Awareness Building for Packaging Reforms to Reduce Demand for Cigarettes in Pakistan'. The News Pakistan Sat, 25 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=143082 http://tobacco.org/news/272862.html It is useless to say that the government has miserably failed to impose the 'Prohibition of Smoking and Protection of Non-Smokers Health Ordinance 2002' in letter and spirit because there is nothing new about it. We still find people smoking openly in public transport, in offices, the educational institutions and even in the hospitals! The blanket ban on smoking at public places through the 2002 Anti-Smoking Ordinance went up in the smoke as it was hardly implemented except in the airliners! . . . We believe that this proposal to set up 'designated areas' for smoking would help implement the anti-smoking ordinance more forcefully because then the smokers would have little to offer in excuse for violating the law if there are some 'designated areas' in existence in close proximity of where he/she might be found smoking. However, we hope that those responsible for implementing this law would be careful not to allow such 'designated areas' inside the health and educational institutions if the government decided to go ahead with the move. The News Pakistan Sat, 25 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/10/14/ap5554464.html http://tobacco.org/news/272534.html More than three months after it became law, people are still arguing about whether Iowa's indoor smoking ban is putting bars out of business. A lawyer for bar owners told a legislative panel Tuesday that the ban is keeping potential customers away and could ruin some businesses. "It really is costing some businesses," said George Eichhorn, a former lawmaker hired by bar owners to challenge the law. "You're looking at 20 percent of the people who don't show up because they can't smoke." But Cathy Callaway, of the American Cancer Society's Cancer Action Network, said her group has studied the impact of smoking bans in Iowa and other states with similar restrictions and found the same result. "There is no impact," Callaway said. Scores of bar owners and sympathizers jammed a meeting of the Legislature's Administrative Rules Review Committee, which for months has been overseeing the regulations governing the indoor smoking ban. AP Tue, 14 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081014/NEWS/710149915/1006/news http://tobacco.org/news/272532.html State health officials Tuesday refuted claims Iowa's smoke-free workplace law is driving bars out of business, while tavern owners claimed rule changes the agency is proposing will make matters worse. Bonnie Mapes, director of the state Department of Public Health's tobacco use prevention & control division, said an analysis of other states with similar laws did not identify the switch to smoke-free environments as a cause of business failures. "I know this sounds emphatic but it's emphatic because it's true, in not one single instance has there been a documented negative impact on businesses," Mapes said. She also noted that the state Alcoholic Beverages Division has issued about 200 new state liquor licenses since July 1, when Iowa's smoke-free law took effect, and has had 121 license cancellations through Oct. 13 compared to 141 licenses that were canceled during the same period one year ago. However, bar owners who packed the standing room only hearing said they have seen their profits slip dramatically since customers and employees now have to take their smoke breaks outside unless the business has a patio and does not prepare food on premise. Cedar Rapids Gazette rod.boshart@gazettecommunications.com (Rod Boshart The Gazette) Tue, 14 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/366908_smoking13.html http://tobacco.org/news/272353.html "I will be back," vowed Meg Dalton in one of the heated e-mails she and John Bayliss, owner of Fremont's English-style The George & Dragon Pub, have exchanged for weeks about smoking on the bar's deck. . . . But Bayliss, not pleased by the inspection, blamed Dalton in a June 4 e-mail for cutbacks: "so thank you very much ... now our business sales have dropped because the smokers can't smoke outside ... they are just going to go to one of a thousand places where people smoke on patios or outside the bars. So now I will have to terminate the employment of several staff ... " . . . In fact, bars and taverns statewide have seen a greater increase in business than before the smoking ban's passage in 2005, according to a state Department of Revenue study released Tuesday. Watering holes saw 20 percent more revenue in 2007, compared with the 0.3 percent gain it saw in 2006, the first full year with the ban. Department spokesman Mike Gowrylow said some establishments -- as Bayliss claims -- may have been hurt by the ban, but the industry as a whole "appears to have found a way to adapt and prosper," he said. Attracting more nonsmokers probably more than offsets the loss of smokers, he said. But Dalton's complaint raises questions about why clouds of smoke still hang over some bar patios and balconies, more than two years after smoking was banned in bars and restaurants, and within 25 feet of doors, windows and air vents. Seattle Post-Intelligencer kerymurakami@seattlepi.com (KERY MURAKAMI P-I REPORTER ) Fri, 13 Jun 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.thestate.com/opinion/story/550353.html http://tobacco.org/news/272344.html COLUMBIA'S BAN on smoking in public places, including restaurants and bars, wasn't in effect a week before some, including a bar owned by a member of City Council, had begun exploiting a loophole that allows employees to continue to be exposed to secondhand smoke. Bars and restaurants are opening smoking decks so customers can continue to smoke while they drink. For example, City Councilman Kirkman Finlay's Congaree Grill has added a bar to its deck . . . While it's within the businesses' rights to develop smoking areas, they shouldn't be allowed to require employees to serve food and drinks to smoking patrons. Those who do so are violating the spirit and intent of the law . . . While we understand his argument, we disagree with Columbia Mayor Bob Coble's contention that "If you are outside then you don't have secondhand smoke." There's a reason many governments and private businesses are now banning smoking not only inside their buildings but around entrances. . . . Local governments in Lexington and Richland counties should adopt similar laws to address restaurant and bar owners' concerns that a ban that isn't adopted by the entire community or that has exemptions would encourage patrons to abandon them for competitors whose patrons are allowed to smoke. No doubt, this will spark some pointed debate, particularly in Columbia. But that's no reason not to do what's right. If the idea is to protect workers and the law that's on the books doesn't fully accomplish that, then officials are obligated to make changes. And it's better to correct the problem now than later. Columbia State Fri, 10 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.nbc40.net/view_story.php?id=7124 http://tobacco.org/news/272283.html Officials with Harrah's Entertainment say its four casinos will go smoke-free on the gambling floor and stay that way. Smokers will also have to go outside at the Hilton and Resorts. The WMGM-TV NBC40 news@nbc40.net Fri, 10 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=140273 http://tobacco.org/news/272211.html In a shocking development, which is being interpreted by health experts and activists as "yet another triumph of the tobacco industry," the Ministry of Health has provided legal cover to the long-disputed smoking lounges across the country by issuing guidelines for the establishment of Designated Smoking Areas (DSAs), 'The News' learnt through well-placed sources here on Thursday. Sharing details, sources working for the ministry confirmed that under Section 5 of the Prohibition of Smoking and Protection of Non Smokers Health Ordinance, 2002 (LXXIV of 2002), the Ministry of Health has, on September 6, 2008, notified a statutory regulatory order containing guidelines that permit the creation of DSAs "in premises or places where adequate arrangements are made to protect the health of non-smokers." 'The News' contacted the Director General Implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), Shaheen Masud, to find out why the Ministry of Health has issued guidelines in contravention of the World Health Organisation's (WHOs) policy of 100 percent smoke-free environments. "Article 8 of the FCTC only talks about protection from exposure to secondhand smoke. However, the WHO guidelines issued in 2007 state that separately ventilated areas and non-smoking areas are not recommended. Now, while the FCTC, which contains no mention of 100 percent smoke-free environments, is binding on all member countries, the WHO guidelines are not," Shaheen responded. The News Pakistan Fri, 10 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://news.mainetoday.com/updates/033733.html http://tobacco.org/news/271957.html A new smoke-free ordinance will take effect Friday in the city of Portland. The law prohibits smoking before 10 p.m. within the outdoor areas of restaurants and bars that serve food. Mayor Ed Suslovic will be joined by members of the Health and Recreation Committee and local health organizations in a 3 p.m. kickoff ceremony at the Porthole Restaurant on Custom House Wharf. Earlier this year, the City Council enacted an ordinance prohibiting smoking within 20 feet of city-owned beaches, playgrounds, or athletic facilities. Maine Today Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ME_OUTDOOR_SMOKE_BAN_MEOL-?SITE=NHCON&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT http://tobacco.org/news/271956.html PORTLAND, Maine (AP) -- A new law taking effect Friday in Maine's largest city will prohibit smoking within the outdoor areas of restaurants and bars where beverage or dining service is available, but smokers will be allowed to light up after 10 p.m. Portland City Council enacted the ordinance to decrease the public's exposure to second hand smoke. Maximum fines for violators are $100. "Second hand smoke is a dangerous toxin, and employees and patrons of restaurants and bars should be able to work or enjoy a meal without exposure to such a serious health hazard," said Mayor Ed Suslovic. AP Thu, 02 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://express-advocate-wyong.whereilive.com.au/news/story/supreme-court-lights-up-debate/ http://tobacco.org/news/271932.html CENTRAL Coast clubs were stunned by the Supreme Court decision last week on partially-covered outdoor smoking areas. The court found Dubbo RSL was in breach of the NSW Health Department guidelines for the partial roof covering at its outdoor smoking area. The department has warned that other clubs also did not comply. Express Advocate Wyong Edition Australia Thu, 02 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT http://journalstar.com/articles/2008/09/25/news/local/doc48dbdfbb98370954140344.txt http://tobacco.org/news/271791.html Lincoln restaurant and bar owners will not likely be required to reconfigure their outdoor areas to pass muster under the statewide smoking ban. The state rules may appear to be different than Lincoln's guidelines, but they are likely broad enough to encompass the way Lincoln businesses have designed their outdoor areas, according to a state employee involved in the rule making process. . . . Just two people appeared Thursday in person at the public hearing at the State Office Building. Two other groups have sent written comments to the Department of Health and Human Services. The Lincoln Lancaster County Health Department raised the different design rules for outdoor smoking areas in a written letter. Lincoln Journal Star Thu, 25 Sep 2008 04:00:00 GMT