By The Way, No Smoking in Illiniois

[Jim Warfield]

None tolerated in businesses especially taverns and restaurants a $2,500 fine awaits the tavern owner with the bartender getting a $250 ticky.
Smoking only 15 feet away from the outside of the building with ashtrays also at a 15 feet minimum distance away and excessive butt-litter can also get the property owner a littering fine if not picked up.
If I or my wife smoked we could not legally smoke in our own house because it is also our business.
The new Cigerette Police will be followed by the Fart police, the Thought Police the Brown Shoe Police?
I want that Brown show law, because I'll have the exclusive northern Illinois distributirship for Black shoes, I'll get So Rich'!!
"Sickem Brown Shoe Police!!
By forcing people 15 feet away from the front of businesses legally the only place to smoke will be in the street for many locations.
The first wave of the Cigerette Police will be unpaid volunteers with camera/cell phones gathering evidence and also suffering an ocassional broken nose. (my guess?)
i have never smoked , I don't appreciate smoke in my face but I see personal adult fredoms in peril and it is probably only beginning......

[TheCareTaker]

agreed there has to be some places where you would expect to be in the approprite invironment! like bars, not hotel bars but striaght up bars, casinos, porn conventions, extc not that i would know i don't smoke. but am getting tired of so much control being given to politicians and lawmakers. i just feel we are slowly creeping toward a dictatorship. Or are we allready in one! dont tell me what to budy ill drink and rub my scrotum just like al bundy when and where i want. Not

[Jim Warfield]

Maybe I'll patent the soon-coming manditory butt-plugs (no farting!) and padded mittens (required by law= no scratching!)
AH! A Perfect World ! Just pass another law to make it all So!

[xxxdirk]

In Appleton WI where I live, 2 years ago the non smoking advocates managed to pass a law banning smokes in all businesses. Bars restaurants, retal stores etc. Appleton is the ONLY city in the state to have done this, and because of that, many bars and restaurants have seen a drastic loss of business. All the smokers are just going to neighboring cities to eat and drink...

[HauntedWebby]

Dang and I thought our smoking laws were tought. You can't smoke within 25 feet of a public enterance or inside a public building.

Not sure if it ever passed, but I think you can still smoke in bars. I know you can in private clubs. Here if you're going out on the town, you don't go to a bar, you go to a club.

[Jim Warfield]

Remember the nuetron bomb? Destroys people not property?
They need you standing away from the buildings so when their death-ray from the satellite zaps you your entrails won't be staining the siding.
They will already be then where they are supposed to be, in the gutter waiting for the scavengers to take you home, one piece goes to Coy Coyote, one piece goes to Fair L. Cat, some goes to Rabid Kay Nine and Margery Maggottz does the clean up.
"Big Brother" isn't just "watching", he's drooling!

[kpolley]

Jim,

I live in Illinois too. I, also, am not a smoker but I agree that this is stupid. Our Governor has lost his mind. Everyone, even his own party, hates him. There was an article in the paper the other day where they called him a dictator...his OWN PEOPLE called him a dictator. He's gone off the deep end.

You remember a year or so ago when he tried to FORCE all pharmacies to carry the "morning after pill"? That's insane! How can the government tell a private business what they MUST sell. What if I own a gas station and I only want to sell Pepsi? Can he come in and tell me that I MUST sell coke?

People in this country (and especially this state) need to stand up and tell the government to get out of our lives. It is not the job of the government to police every aspect of our lives. Big government is like a cancer that destroys everything it touches.

[Jim Warfield]

But think how "good" the gov. can look when he eliminates so much unemployment because special police will be needed to watch all the smokers, all the stores not selling certain pills.
They tried to pass a law in Illiniois making it against the law to catch rainwater since the state now gets tons of money from each town for the priveledge of poking a hole into the ground and sucking out water. Can't handle competition so regulate and tax it.
Now there is some talk about special smoking permits so maybe it was never about health maybe it was about making something illegal then making people pay to do what they used to do for free?
I'm holding out for the job as Underware Inspector (female specialized).
I really want that state car with the logo on each door and the little unfurled banner under the seal saying "Official Underware Inspector", women will have a true look of consternation when they see me coming!