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Plans To Allow Women and Gays, Ban Smoking Shake World of Navy Submarines Craig Whitlock April 22, 2010 Imagine 150 fraternity brothers packed into a container the size of a three-bedroom house. Announce you are breaking hallowed traditions by taking away their cigarettes and admitting women. Then lock the doors and push the container deep into the sea, for months at a time. That's what the Navy, after decades of contemplation and controversy, has decided to do with its Submarine Force, an elite fraternity of 13,000 active-duty sailors that has been patrolling the oceans for 110 years. As of Dec....

NORFOLK, Va., April 10 (UPI) -- The U.S. Navy announced smoking will be banned below decks on all submarines effective Dec. 31. "This policy was initiated for the health of the sailors who choose not to smoke," said Lt. Commander Mark Jones, spokesman for the Commander Naval Submarine Forces in Norfolk, Va. "It is unfair for them to be exposed to the unhealthy side effects of secondhand smoke." Jones said a 2009 study by the Navy found non-smokers were exposed to secondhand smoke on all four classes of submarines, CNN reported. The Navy has 71 subs with 13,000 sailors on...

(edit)Closed after a 2005 state law banned public indoor smoking, the cigar lounge at Tacoma’s upscale El Gaucho steakhouse has reopened.Smoking a Dominica-wrapped Romeo y Julieta Habana Reserve inside the newly branded “VIP Lounge” on Monday, El Gaucho owner Paul Mackay said that he and a trio of Cohiba-loving cohorts have met state regulations and now welcome certain cigar smokers to puff away four nights a week.The lounge has been open for nearly two weeks without complaint to the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department.For Mackay, the decision to refurbish and open the room was as much a matter of principle as...

Michigan's state Senate and House passed a smoking ban that will make indoor smoking illegal, save for gambling areas, cigar bars and cigar shops. The measure, HB 4377, passed by a vote of 24 to 13 in the Senate and was overwhelmingly approved by the House in a vote of 75 to 30. The legislation will become law when Gov. Jennifer Granholm signs it; she has come out in favor of such legislation, according to press reports from Michigan. The law will go into effect May 1. Exemptions to the legislation include cigar bars, tobacco stores and casinos. A smoking...

As Montana bars dealt with their first smoke-free weekend since the state’s indoor smoking ban went into effect, ingenuity ruled. In Missoula, according to a great piece by Michael Moore in the Missoulian, the Rhino Bar gave smokers their very own place to light up: a Butt Hutt, created by Dave Golden of Well Done Welding and Jim Bell, a general contractor. Moore describes the hut as a 4-by-8-foot “metal smoking dugout” in the alley behind the Rhino in Missoula. The no-smoking laws spark the type of debate that never seems to get extinguished. Pro-smokers argue that the bans hurt...

New York City’s workplace smoking ban six years ago drove cigarette and cigar puffers outdoors. But soon some of the outdoors may be off limits, too: The city’s health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, said Monday that he would seek to ban smoking at city parks and beaches. Dr. Farley said the ban — which officials said may require the approval of the City Council, but could possibly be done through administrative rule-making by the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation — was part of a broader strategy to further curb smoking rates, which have fallen in recent years. The...

Here is a video report from Indiana that features U.S. military personnel sounding off about the ban on smoking in the military being considered. According to the report, if adopted, the ban would require all new recruits to quit smoking before enlisting, and would not allow smoking on military bases, in military vehicles, or onboard ships. Cigarettes would also no longer be sold in military facilities. In the report, one soldier says, "I don't agree with it. I think it's a waste of taxpayer's money to get involved with this." . . . . (Watch Video)

Sales have been hurt by the spread of indoor smoking bans, which have forced people to go outside to smoke. Tampa will lose part of its cigar heritage in August when Hav-A-Tampa shuts its factory near Seffner and lays off about 495 employees, closing a factory that has been operating since 1902. The company announced the closing today. Many employees there make Hav-A-Tampa's iconic Jewels, inexpensive machine-made cigars known for their birchwood tips. Some workers have labored there for two decades or longer, including one who's been there for 50 years, said Richard McKenzie, a senior vice president of human...

President Obama on Monday signed a landmark anti-smoking bill which he said will reduce the number of children who take up smoking and ultimately save American lives. The bill would give the federal government unprecedented authority to regulate tobacco. The law allows the regulatory Food and Drug Administration to reduce nicotine in tobacco products, ban candy flavorings and block labels such "low tar" and "light." Tobacco companies also will be required to cover their cartons with large graphic warnings.

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds has signed a law banning smoking from nearly all indoor public places, including bars, video lottery casinos and gambling halls.

PORT HOPE -- It's only a matter of time before someone "snaps" after being pulled over under Ontario's new law forbidding smoking in a vehicle carrying a minor, a police officer said yesterday in response to a quirk in the legislation that was made evident during a weekend incident. "People got mad enough when they couldn't smoke in bars anymore or bingo parlours," Port Hope Sgt. Bryant Wood said. "Now you're telling them they can't smoke in cars. At some point somebody's going to snap along the way here." Nova Scotia is the only other jurisdiction in the country to...

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A proposed ban on smoking in most public places will be debated Monday in the Senate, and the chamber's top two leaders said Friday that the bill's chances for passage are good. "If there are no substantive amendments, I would assume it would pass," said Senate President Steve Morris, a Hugoton Republican. Senate Vice President John Vratil agreed, but cautioned that opponents will try to load it up with amendments.

APOLLO — Volunteer fire departments are hurting from the state smoking ban, which has driven players away from the bingo games that raise cash for training firefighters and paying bills, representatives of seven Westmoreland and Armstrong county departments said Sunday.

Cheers To You bar owner Robert Brown wants his customers to smoke if they want to. And Brown said he found a way to keep his private club in Salt Lake City smoker-friendly despite, or maybe because of, the Jan. 1 smoking ban. But Utah Department of Health officials, in a formal declaration issued Tuesday, said that loophole doesn't exist, and the smoking ban stays.

Union that represents Pa. university faculty wants indoor/outdoor ban rescinded. HARRISBURG — Grabbing a quick smoke between classes has become impossible for Lock Haven University political science professor Robert Storch. An indoor and outdoor smoking ban imposed at Pennsylvania’s state university system in September means Storch must walk off campus whenever he craves nicotine — a 20-minute roundtrip excursion that he cannot cram into a 15-minute break between classes. “I find it ridiculous,” Storch told a Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board hearing examiner Tuesday. “You feel like a leper anyway. It’s really very demeaning.” Storch was among a handful of professors...

When they weren't breaking the law or going in and out of jail, the Jersey Boys who went on to become the Four Seasons were hanging out on street corners singing with cigarettes dangling from their mouths. Not in Chicago. Here, lead singer Frankie Valli, song-writing sensation Bob Gaudio and the boys have gone cold turkey Following an apparent complaint from an irate theatergoer, the Chicago theatrical production of "Jersey Boys" has snuffed out cigarettes...

HARRISBURG -- The state Senate has broken a yearlong stalemate on a statewide smoking ban, approving a compromise bill Tuesday that would make Pennsylvania the 33rd state to outlaw smoking in many workplaces and public spaces. The Senate voted 41-9, sending the bill to Gov. Ed Rendell to be signed into law in what supporters hailed as a step forward for public health and protecting people from the dangers of second-hand smoke. All but one senator representing parts of York County gave approval. The sole holdout was retiring Sen. Terry Punt, R-Franklin, who voted in favor of the same legislation...

A group in Santa Fe says the city is discriminating against them because they say that they're allergic to the wireless Internet signal. And now they want Wi-Fi banned from public buildings. Arthur Firstenberg says he is highly sensitive to certain types of electric fields, including wireless Internet and cell phones. "I get chest pain and it doesn't go away right away," he said. Firstenberg and dozens of other electro-sensitive people in Santa Fe claim that putting up Wi-Fi in public places is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The city attorney is now checking to see if...

NORTH ROYALTON, Ohio -- A local community is breathing a little easier after a new crackdown on smoking is approved, NewsChannel5 reported. North Royalton has banned smoking in parks, fields, parking lots and outdoor seating areas or on any city-owned land. That means there's no smoking at places like the local ballpark, and the new ordinance takes place just in time for little league season. Council members said they were just exercising the will of the people who want to curb the amount of second-hand smoke they have to breathe. "We just don't like the cigarette butts laying all over...

Initiative Would Exempt Cigar Bars From Indoor Smoking Ban By Austin JenkinsOlympia, WA  March 19, 2008 3:28 p.m. Washington State’s two-year-old indoor smoking ban is facing a challenge. Cigar shop owners have filed a citizen initiative to roll-back part of the law.Dale Taylor is with the newly formed Cigar Association of Washington. He says the initiative would allow smoking in cigar shops, cigar bars, private clubs and service organizations like the Elks.Dale Taylor: “What we’re asking for here is a fair and reasonable exemption to the law that allows a cigar store, for instance like the one I work in,...