Cook County bans smoking

Cook County's public smoking ban went into effect today. This means that any place in Cook County not already subject to a community ordinance regarding smoking (basically, unincorporated Cook County and any city, village, or twon which hasn't bothered to pass a more or less restrictive ban yet) is now subject to the county's rather broad public smoking ban, which includes both bars and restaurants.

The Cook County ordinance is similar to the Chicago one, except that it does not have Chicago's "air scrubber" exception for bars: all bars are now nonsmoking. This means that Possum's Pub, a little hole in the wall bar a block from our house, might actually be appealing: it's in unincorporated Cook County, which means that they will be nonsmoking and there's no village council that can change that short of annexing the property, which will not likely happen.

Too bad the setback is only 15 feet. I'd have much preferred 25.