| The Initiative 901 statewide smoking ban went into effect on Dec. 8 requiring employers to prohibit smoking in all indoor areas of the workplace under employer control (including bathrooms, break rooms, production areas and office spaces) and outside areas within twenty-five feet of doors, open windows and ventilation intakes.
An employer or business owner can petition the local health department to rebut the “25 feet rule” if “unique circumstances” allow smoking closer to the doors, open windows and ventilation intakes without the inside of the building being exposed to secondhand smoke.
Pedestrians on sidewalks may smoke within areas off-limits to smoking without violating the law.
Local health departments have the authority to enforce the new law against employers and business owners.
Health departments will issue warnings to first-time business violators, after which time employers and business owners will be subject to fines up to $100 per day for each violation.
Local police will enforce the law against individual violators in the same way they enforce traffic ordinances. Employers and business owners must post “no smoking” signs at entrances and in “conspicuous places” in the facility.
Posters can be downloaded at this link.
Although there are ambiguities to the new law, one fact remains clear: Any employer may no longer allow smoking anywhere within its facility.
Find the text of the new law in this PDF. | 