BIG DUMMIES TOLD WHEN AND WHERE THEY CAN SMOKE NOW

No smoke, some ire
January 17, 2006

BY SCOTT FORNEK Staff Reporter

If the hand-lettered neon pink and yellow "no smoking" signs taped up around the Steak 'n Egger weren't enough to get the message across, the reminder from the waitress who spotted the pack of Marlboros on the table was.

"She said, 'You might as well put those away,' " said Scott Woisnet, 42, a carpenter grabbing some lunch at the Near South Side diner.

Woisnet and co-worker Chris Coleman didn't light up. But they didn't like it, either.

"I think it sucks," Coleman, 35, told a reporter later. "You just get off the job, and you want to sit down and have a cigarette."

Woisnet added, "Everywhere we've been, everyone is b------g about it."

Not everyone.

"From a personal level, I like it," Moses Gonzalez, manager of the restaurant at Racine and Cermak, said Monday. "We breathe it all in. My clothes stink -- the clothes, the hair. ... My 4-year-old, when I go home and hug her, it was 'Daddy, you smell.' "

It was the first day under Chicago's tough new anti-smoking ordinance. Lighting up is now prohibited in most public places, from arcades, aquariums and apartment building lobbies to restaurants, stores and movie theaters.

Bars and taverns are among the few types of places not covered by the ban, but it will affect them in 2-1/2 years.

And those knots of shivering smokers huddled outside office buildings? They can't smoke within 15 feet of the entrance to any place where smoking is not allowed.

A 'Smoke-free Facility'



Just to be safe, Greg Edlund, 54, an information technology manager, counted off the two-foot wide paving stones outside the downtown office building where he works before lighting up his post-lunch Marlboro Mild.

"That line is 16 feet from that door, and that line is 16 feet from that door," he said, pointing to the edges of the stone he was standing on and the two entrances to the building at 150 S. Wacker. "I like that, they give you a two-foot square to smoke."

That's pretty much how it went. Smokers grumbled, but complied. And nonsmokers rejoiced.

"Oh my God, I cannot tell you how happy I am," said Carmen Simpson-Clark, co-owner of the Rink, a roller skating rink at 1122 E. 87th St. "As soon as the ordinance passed, I said, 'We are putting up our "Smoke-free Facility" signs in December.' "

About 30 percent of her customers sat in the old smoking section, but she said none of the 300 or so who showed up had to be told.

Gradual enforcement



City inspectors were off Monday because of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, so it's unclear if there were any problems. A police spokesman said he hadn't heard of any, and Health Department spokesman Tim Hadac said officials are hopeful most problems can be worked out informally without fines or legal action.

"Our enforcement is going to be gradual," Hadac said. "This is new to us."

Some business owners said it's too early to tell if the ordinance will affect business.

"I know that people are not happy," said Dick Drehobl, owner of Lincoln Square Lanes, a 12-lane bowling alley at 4874 N. Lincoln. "I'm not happy. I'm a smoker, too."

Drehobl estimated that half of his customers smoke, but he said he already stopped selling cigarettes.

"What's the use of selling cigarettes if you can't smoke?" he asked.

At Chicago's Finest Billiard Room, a 10-table pool hall at 6414 S. Cottage Grove, manager Robert Agins said he had to warn three people by afternoon. "They haven't complained," he said. "I told people not to smoke, and they put it out."

At the Steak 'n Egger, Gonzalez estimated that 80 percent of his customers smoke. So he started warning them weeks ago. "Wherever they go, it's the same thing," Gonzalez said. "They have no choice. That's what I told them."

So it's okay to go into a bathhouse and get sick from second hand AIDS but it's not okay to get sick from second hand smoke? Got it.

No smoke, some ire