Wisconsin - Statewide Smoking Ban

Statewide smoking ban: On July 5, 2010, after being signed into law by Governor Jim Doyle on May 18, 2009, took affect, banning smoking statewide in all enclosed workplaces in Wisconsin, including all bars, restauants, and private clubs, as well as within a "reasonable distance" outdoors from any such place, except in bar/restaurant outdoor patios.

The Act exempts only cigar bars, retail tobacco stores, private residences, designated hotel/motel smoking rooms, and rooms in nursing homes in which the occupants agree to allow smoking; it does not cover casinos run by Native American tribes, as those casinos are in the tribes' sovereign territory. Local governments are preempted from regulating smoking more strictly than the Act.

Until that time, Wisconsin's 2003 statewide smoking law remained in effect, which generally prohibits smoking only in the enclosed portions of public transit vehicles, educational facilities, inpatient healthcare facilities (except in psychiatric faciliies or with a doctor's written permission), indoor movie theaters, offices, passenger elevators, restaurants, retail establishments, public waiting rooms, and state and local government buildings, except in designated smoking areas in any of these places except schools, daycare facilities, juvenile detention facilities, the State Capitol. Warning signs must be appropriately posted either way. The law further exempts rooms where the main occupants are smokers, rented social halls while under control of the renter, bars and restaurants serving liquor, higher security juvenile correction facilities, and prisons.