Ohio smoking ban - includes 18-wheelers

[Pat McCotter]

Ohio Smoking Ban Reportedly Will Affect Trucking Companies
State Trucking Association May Challenge Law

A smoking ban that takes effect in Ohio on Thursday will affect trucking companies and their drivers ? including in truck cabs ? Dayton, Ohio, television station WHIO reported on its Web site.

The ban has surprised truckers, who had not been sure the ban would affect them, the station reported. The Ohio Trucking Association may try to convince Ohio lawmakers to give drivers an exemption from the ban, WHIO reported.

Trucking companies are doing the best they can to comply with the new law, which will ban smoking in everything from offices to restaurants and bowling alleys, WHIO said.

An official at one trucking company said he will be setting changes for truckers and said he expects employees to comply with them, the station reported.

One potential hitch is the law?s rule that a ?no smoking? sign be on every door, raising the question of whether trucking companies need to put a sign on every truck, the station said.

[Pat McCotter]

Ohio?s Anti-Smoking Law Unlikely to Be Enforced on Truckers
Owner-Operators, Out-of-Staters Exempt, State Official Says

Enforcement against on-the-job truckers who violate Ohio?s new smoking ban that took effect Thursday morning is expected to be lax, but trucking industry officials said the law should be changed to exempt drivers, the Columbus Dispatch reported.

While Ohio-based truckers must comply with the new law and, for the time being, forbid drivers to smoke in cabs, tractors belonging to carriers headquartered in other states are considered ?out-of-state workplaces? and are not subject to the smoking ban, Kristopher Weiss, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Health, told Transport Topics.

Likewise, independent drivers who own and operate their own trucks will still be permitted to smoke in their cabs, Weiss said.

The state?s workplace smoking ban means that most truck drivers no longer can smoke legally behind the wheel, news reports said this week. (Click here for previous coverage.)

Truck drivers were surprised that the ban affected their cabs, the Dispatch reported Thursday. But Ohio officials and co-sponsors of the measure said the ban as applied to truck drivers was not likely to be enforced, the paper said.

Health inspectors will enforce the ban based on complaints and it is unlikely that people would report truck drivers smoking in their cabs, the Dispatch reported.

The law requires no-smoking signs to be posted at workplaces, including on truck doors. Ashtrays also must be removed from workplaces, including vehicles, Larry Davis, president of the Ohio Trucking Association, told the Dispatch. The trucking industry will lobby for an exemption from the ban for drivers, Davis said.

[burnthebeautiful]

So trucks from other states can be smoked in, the Ohio ban is only for Ohio-based truck companies. So my question is, what if an Ohio-based companies truck is driving outside of Ohio?

[Pat McCotter]

If the driver complains the health department will investigate.

[maineiac]

Incredible . . . I think that's the right word!

(I quit smoking in July '05 without any government assistance/coercion)

[KBCraig]

On the upside in Ohio news... both houses over-rode the governor's veto of HB-347. With that now becoming law, Ohio joins the ranks of states having full state preemption over local gun restrictions (various gun bans in the big cities). Also eliminated is the insane requirement that motorists with concealed carry licenses either carry openly, or lock their guns away.

The Law of Unintended Consequences is in effect, because the Ohio gun laws were updated when pro-gun Democrats defeated anti-gun RINOs. The beauty is that Hillary, Chucky, Teddy, et al, may have the chairmanships, but they only have the majority by virtue of those who will vote against them on gun issues.

Kevin

[aries]

now who would obey that

my town's chief of police chain smokes in his SUV... and in the Poice Department. Always smokey and smelly in there.

[Pat McCotter]

We should get maids and butlers in Ohio to complain about smoking in their workplaces.