Oregon’s Smokefree Workplace Law, What happens when people violate the smoking ban?

The questions about complying with Oregon’s Smokefree Workplace Law (2007 SB 571, 2007 Laws Chap. 602) are thick on the ground, or in the air.

As is true with a lot of new laws, no one is completely sure how this law will all play out in real life. A lot of planning went into its drafting, and now that it has gone into effect, people are still asking those “what if” questions.

If you have a question about the Smokefree Workplace Law:

1) Read the law. You may already have found the website links to the Oregon Smokefree Workplace website, which has the text of the statute and explanatory information. (See link above for the text of the bill and the session law.)

2) Call or email the Smokefree Workplace agency staff. This may be particularly helpful if you have a specific question and don’t find an answer on their website.

3) Read the news stories, and there were many, especially just before the law went into effect (you can Google Oregon Clean Air Act) and now that everyone is trying to comply (or not) there are even more stories.

4) Call you state legislator; they were the ones who wrote this law. They like hearing from people with questions about Oregon state laws. Find your legislators.

Keywords: smoking bans, smoke-free, smoke free, clean air

Anonymous says:

May 10, 2009 at 8:29 pm

After nearly a year and a half of experience here in Chicago, now that the fanfare has worn off and the lobbyists have moved on to other states, it’s clearly obvious that trying to ban smoking in small neighborhood “shot and beer” bars is pretty useless. Many small bars in my area ignore the ban to keep their customers, neighbors, and local police (many are patrons when off duty) satisfied. In areas where real crime is an issue, the problem of undesirables being attracted by groups of people outside the bars and causing disturbances on the PUBLIC street, property that the owner has no control over, far outweighs the issue of people peacefully smoking inside a bar, bothering absolutly no one, All of the complaints are from neighbors of bars that comply. It’s fading into history in many small neighborhood bars. The only places it becomes an issue seems to be in rural areas where local police have little to do except visit local bars and monitor their parking lots, the larger “company” bars downtown, and those in “trendy” areas with a high turnover of patrons.