New Jersey entered the smoke-free era Saturday, snuffing out indoor smoking with a long-awaited ban that only excludes Atlantic City's 12 casinos.

The ban, which carries fines of 250 to 1,000 dollars for people who light up and the businesses that let them, makes New Jersey the 11th state in the country to outlaw smoking indoors.

The ban was to take effect at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, although no sweeping enforcement action was planned, officials said.

The New Jersey Smoke-Free Air Act that just came into effect prohibits cigar, cigarette and pipe smoking in restaurants, bars, private office buildings and other indoor places.

Instead, the state embarked on a media blitz aimed at educatingbusiness owners and smokers about the law, while the local health officers responsible for enforcing it were counting on voluntary compliance and puzzling over how to keep tabs on rebel smokers andbusinesses that fail to crack down.

Violators will get a written warning first and would face fines of 250, 500 and 1,000 dollars for first, second and third offenses. But the finer points of its enforcement remain unclear, in part because the state has yet to formally adopt regulations that establish the terms and conditions of the ban.

The law was passed to cut down on workers' exposure to secondhand smoke, which health officials say claims up to 1,800 lives a year in New Jersey alone. Advocates hope it will clear theair for everyone by pushing puffers outside and making smoking less socially acceptable.

While anti-smoking activists cheered the ban, many bar owners and Atlantic City casino employees were still furious about its exemption of casinos.

The law permits smoking in gambling areas of the casinos, thanks to intense lobbying by casino industry officials who said aban would keep gamblers away and cut into profits earned by the casinos and shared by the state.

Other states with similar indoor smoking bans are California, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

Source: Xinhua