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Today, those with a penchant for butts haul themselves into court to contest smoking tickets. Or they brave winter winds for the toasted taste.
Casinos say they're losing money, especially near borders with neighboring states, where customers have moved across the state line to gamble because they can smoke there.
And the Legislature is still working to clear up enforcement of the ban that prohibits smoking in and within 15 feet of public places.
Yet, by most accounts, it appears the Southland has adjusted to a smoke-free lifestyle, despite a rocky start, with disgruntled smokers pushed outdoors during January cold.
"They weathered the storm," said David Seaman, a Tinley Park Village trustee who is on the American Cancer Society's national board of directors. "Not all smokers are surly people. I just don't think it was quite the issue that people feared early on."
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The liquor licenses of two Iowa bars have been suspended for failure to abide by the state's public smoking ban.
Fro's Pub n' Grub in Wilton and Otis Campbell's Bar & Grill in West Burlington are the first bars to have their liquor licenses suspended because of the statewide smoking ban, which began July 1.
Otis Campbell's license suspension begins Feb. 9 and will last until March 11. Fro's license will be suspended from Feb. 9 until March 2, according to rulings issued Friday by Administrative Law Judge Margaret LaMarche.
Owners of both bars failed to stop patrons or staff from smoking, court documents show.
Fro's owner Brian Froehlich was quoted in court documents saying he would "take the $100 fine to protect my business as long as I could." . . .
In the Otis Campbell's ruling, LaMarche noted that the bar's refusal to comply with the law is unfair to his competitors that are following the law. She ruled that the license shall remain suspended until the owner complies with the law.
Illinois has a new media campaign to highlight the successes of the state's Smoke-free Illinois Act.
The television and radio ads start airing Thursday across Illinois. The act became law one year ago. . . .
In the 30-second ad, Burton talks about how business at his restaurant and bar hasn't suffered since the law took effect.
It’s been just more than a year since Illinois enacted a smoking ban in bars and restaurants.
The measure remains controversial. . . .
Eating an unhealthy diet won’t give the person sitting next to you heart disease. Smoking a cigarette next to someone on a daily basis can.
We don’t doubt that the statewide smoking ban has adversely affected some businesses along the state line.
However, it would be wrong to make generalizations about the impact of the ban on businesses throughout the state, especially given the recession. Lastly, without a statewide ban, individual counties and cities would have enacted their own measures. A statewide ban put all Illinois businesses on equal footing.
Emphysema
If you are aged 40 to 74, have severe emphysema, are able to participate in standard exercise testing, are willing to abstain from smoking for four months prior and during the trial, and can complete at least one overnight clinic stay, you may qualify for this study.
The research site is in Chicago, Ill.
More information
Please see http://www.centerwatch.com/patient/studies/cat59.html.
In the year since the new law kicked in, many bar owners say they've lost business, while casinos blame a drop in business on the ban and local governments that depend on gambling-tax revenue say they're sharing in the pain.
But the complaints aren't universal. Some bar owners say they've survived and even thrived since the ban, and organizations that pushed for it say the first year has been a success.
"I think it went exceptionally well," said Kathy Drea, the director of public policy for the American Lung Association. "We've heard from so many people that are now working in smoke-free work places and what a difference it's made in their lives. They just feel better."
Effective Jan. 1, 2008, the measure outlawed smoking in public places and within 15 feet of their exterior doors and windows. People and establishments that violate the law face fines of up to $250.
On Thursday, December 18, 2008, St. Louis attorney Stephen Tillery of Korein Tillery filed a motion in the case of Price v. Philip Morris (Madison County, Illinois Circuit Court, cause No. 00-L-112) to re-open the $10.1 billion judgment in Price v. Philip Morris based on a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court rendered earlier this week. . . .
“The final order dismissing the Price case was not actually entered until December 18, 2006. When it ruled earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court decision came just a couple of days before the two year deadline under Illinois law which allows challenges to set aside judgments,” said Stephen Tillery.
Stephen Tillery was the first lawyer to beat the tobacco industry in court over its marketing of light cigarettes -- but he never got the ultimate prize.
In 2005, the Illinois Supreme Court reversed a $10.1 billion verdict he won in Madison County Circuit Court in a class action case against cigarette maker Philip Morris.
But now, guided by an unrelated U.S. Supreme Court opinion last week, Tillery says he's preparing to revive the case and will try to collect.
A law professor predicts he will be thwarted by a small but key difference in the cases. . . .
Beckett said the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision involved the state of Maine's deceptive practice statute and whether it was preempted by a federal statute or FTC rulings.
Illinois is different, Beckett said, because its deceptive practices law has an exemption for companies that follow federal standards. "The Maine statute had no 'exemption' provision like the Illinois statute," Beckett said. Tillery's litigation may still have had an impact. Today, a pack of Philip Morris' Marlboro Lights is no longer emblazoned with the label "Lowered Tar & Nicotine."
While casino workers can now breathe smoke-free air at work, the year-old indoor smoking ban in Illinois has been measurably tough on the state’s riverboats.
That means attempts to allow gamblers smoke at the slots and gambling tables probably won’t die with 2008.
All year, monthly reports from the Illinois Gaming Board showed a sharp decline in the amount the state’s gamblers were putting on the line at casinos. So far this year, the state’s boats have seen about a 20 percent drop.
Surely, some of that decline can be seen because of the country’s economic recession.
But gambling hasn’t fallen as sharply in casinos in states that border Illinois.
“The only other thing is smoking,” said Tom Swoik, executive director of the Illinois Casino Gaming Association.
Early this year, the casino industry and some lawmakers pushed to have Illinois riverboats exempted from the indoor smoking ban. Those efforts failed, but they are not unprecedented.
But now, after almost 12 months, there have been no major incidents to report.
“I think it’s actually worked better than I think anybody anticipated,” said Randy Hellman, a correctional officer at the Pinckneyville Correctional Center.
Prison officials also say the smoking ban has gone well.
“We will have an occasional violation with an inmate, staff or visitor in possession of tobacco, but those occurrences have been minimal,” said Illinois Department of Corrections spokesman Derek Schnapp. . . .
Schnapp said inmates got the opportunity to take smoking cessation classes. Prison stores began stocking nicotine patches and lozenges.
The state also begin offering inmates three pieces of sugarless, hard candy with meals in order to take their minds off of having a cigarette after eating.
In addition, the department believes a smoking ban already in effect in county jails helped with the transition. “We have not really seen anything that would relate fights to lack of nicotine,” Schnapp said.
The state's year-old indoor smoking ban is working well in Illinois prisons where inmates, who once had been allowed to smoke in their cells, have been forced to quit, officials say.
Starting last Jan. 1, Illinois joined 18 other states and made it illegal to smoke in virtually every public place. That included the state's 28 prisons, meaning 45,000 inmates couldn't even light up in outdoor prison yards.
A union representing prison workers had warned that would raise hostilities among inmates. But officials say they've seen few problems. And prisoners with asthma have fewer health complications.
"We will have an occasional violation with an inmate, staff or visitor in possession of tobacco, but those occurrences have been minimal," Illinois Department of Corrections spokesman Derek Schnapp told The (Bloomington) Pantagraph.
A mentally disabled man accidentally started a Nov. 9 fire in a Mendota group home, killing a fellow resident, while playing with a cigarette lighter.
The death of 55-year-old Thomas Guisinger was ruled an accident Thursday at a hearing before a La Salle County coroner’s jury.
Coroner Jody Bernard said Guisinger died from smoke inhalation sustained in the home. Toxicology results showed a lethal concentration of carbon monoxide poisoning. Detective Sgt. Greg Kellen told the coroner’s jury that the fire started when a fellow resident activated a Bic lighter in the pocket of his pajamas, which caught fire and spread to the bed.
The resident, Kellen said, was permitted to smoke outdoors and carry a lighter, though his cigarettes were restricted to limit his daily intake.
The traditional response: Workers should have to choose between their job and their health. Common-sense safe workplace requirements demand that second-hand smoke and other airborne toxins be eliminated when possible.
The dilemma: Allowing casino gamblers to smoke in Illinois' eight casinos would be a small practical reversal for the clean indoor-air movement, but an enormous setback for the principle upon which their movement rests: Public health trumps profit concerns.
The logical inevitability if casinos get a smoking exemption: If the legislature concedes that it's OK for casino workers to be forced to choose between their jobs and their health, there's no principled reason why they shouldn't say the same about bar and nightclub employees, bowling alley workers and so on.
The solution: A federal indoor smoking ban that levels the playing field between states.
The struggling economy has dealt a bad hand to the nation's usually robust gambling business, a downturn made even worse in Illinois, where the state's nearly year-old smoking ban has proved unhealthy to casinos.
Among those paying the steepest prices are local governments, charities and their clients, who have come to rely on gambling tax receipts.
The big gambling states-- Nevada, New Jersey and Mississippi--are off 5 percent to 7 percent in casino revenue. But the picture is worst in Illinois, where casino revenue is down 20.3 percent this year.
Gambling officials estimate that the state will get between $150 million and $160 million less in taxes, most of it earmarked for education. Statewide, the eight communities with casinos will see $20 million to $25 million less than they took in last year, officials estimate.
Her voice a buzzing monotone, courtesy of the electronic vocalizer she must hold to her throat in order to speak, Morton Grove resident Betty Meissner had a suggestion for the Niles West High School students listening to her Nov. 6 in teacher Brett Clish's health class.
If they don't want to risk ending up like her, a cancer survivor who can no longer speak in her own voice, don't smoke. . . .
Fellow cancer survivor Stan Nebel upped the ante during his presentation to the same class.
The Wisconsin retiree gave the teens a close-up view of the huge hole in his throat, where surgeons removed his larynx to save his life.
Some of his audience were visibly shaken by the graphic illustration of what breathing second-hand smoke -- Nebel contracted cancer of the larynx after years of working in an office building full of smokers -- can do.