Virginia restaurant smoking ban begins tomorrow

By Sandhya Somashekhar
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 30, 2009 2:32 PM

If you live in Virginia and fancy a cigarette with your happy hour
drink, savor it Monday.

Starting Tuesday, smoking will banned in most of the 17,500 bars and
restaurants across Virginia, the state where Englishman John Rolfe is
credited with planting the nation's first commercial tobacco plant in
1611 and where conservative lawmakers have long resisted such a move.

The law, which was signed in February after years of lobbying by smoking
foes, puts Virginia in line with the District, Maryland and dozens of
other states and cities that have adopted similar prohibitions.


Virginia's law is more permissive than its neighbors', allowing for
walled-off smoking areas with separate ventilation and exempting private
clubs from the ban. Owners and customers who violate the law are subject
to a $25 fine.

(Note...Maryland's ban started out this way, with special closed off
areas for smokers. We got that part of the law changed, too, so now
those areas are gone...and there is no smoking.)


As of last week, about 75 percent of the state's eating and drinking
establishments had gone completely smoke-free, said Gary Hagy, a
spokesman for the Virginia Health Department.

"We've gotten calls from a few [restaurant owners] who aren't happy, but
we expect most Virginians will comply with the law," Hagy said. "Some
restaurants are actually glad and are saying, 'We are happy the law
passed, we have been wanting to go smoke-free for some time.' "


--
If you are flajim, herring, loogy, GC boater, johnson, topbassdog, rob,
achmed the sock puppet, or one of a half dozen others, you're wasting
your time by trying to *communicate* with me through rec.boats, because,
well, you are among the permanent members of my dumbfoch dumpster, and I
don't read the vomit you post, except by accident on occasion. As
always, have a nice, simple-minded day.