Local municipalities are following similar actions by the state to ban smoking in public areas. Effective September 11, 2008, after being signed into law by Governor Ed Rendell on June 13, 2008, Pennsylvania's 1988 Clean Indoor Air Act was amended to ban smoking statewide in all restaurants and most other enclosed workplaces. The Act exempts eating/drinking establishments where 20 percent or less of sales come from food. Some exclusions consist of private homes and vehicles (except those used as part of child daycare or adult care facility), designated hotel/motel smoking rooms, full service truck stops, retail tobacco shops, workplaces of tobacco manufacturers and wholesalers, designated smoking areas in day treatment facilities, psychiatric facilities, and healthcare facilities, private clubs when public events are not being held (including volunteer fire, ambulance, and rescue stations), tobacco-related fundraisers, places rented for tobacco exhibitions, cigar bars, 25 percent of a casino gaming floor and so on. For more details, go to the Pennsylvania Department of Health's website at

www.health.state.pa.us z8f"FrnkGothITC Bk BT" In photo above, Lee Calkins, President, South Ward Playground Association, prepares to place a no smoking sign on a pole inside the playground. Tamaqua Borough Council placed a smoking ban at all community parks.