Half Hour Left To Legally Cough In Bars

Hey, everybody, you can smoke for another 35 minutes or so! Yes, the dreaded smoking ban goes back into effect for real this time, but the Inquirer’s Patrick Kerkstra writes the ban won’t be enforced until this afternoon.

The original ban went into effect on Sept. 15, pretty much immediately after John Street signed it, after approximately a 200-year battle to enact one. Nobody really enforced anything, though, and everyone continued to smoke inside bars on Christian Street or wherever.

Then, in December, council passed an even more confusing smoking ban that upped the percentage of food restaurants could sell to remain smoke-free to 20 percent but banned smoking outside in outdoor cafes. That law repealed the old smoking ban but goes into effect today, just in time for temperatures to drop into the 40s!

The Inky’s Kerkstra interviews a few bartenders, including Flip Hassell, who is opposed to the smoking ban.

“It’s part of being a bartender. There’s drinking, there’s smoking, you have to throw guys out. It’s part of the job.”

Just wait until the throw-guys-out ban gets passed later this year.

Smoking ban back - for real this time [Inquirer]
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