On April 2012, the Birmingham City Council unanimously passed a comprehensive smoking ban which would prohibit smoking in indoor environments and many public places, including bars and restaurants, but with many amendments.

One amendment requires businesses such as cigar and hookah bars which receive 80% of their revenue through tobacco sales, to quality for an exemption from the ban.

Bar and restaurant owners made a plea with the council for unregulated outdoor smoking outside their establishment’s entrances or patios. This led to an amendment of an ordinance which banned smoking within 10 feet of an entrance to a bar or restaurant. The new amendment states that smokers must be at least 7 feet from the entrance of the establishment.

Another amendment exempted the use of electronic cigarettes or e-cigarettes from the smoking ban. Stillwater Pub owner Jason Brunson voiced out that e-cigarettes are helpful to people who are trying to quit smoking. “I really think that at least people should be allowed to do that (use e-cigarettes), because people are going to smoke regardless,” he said. E-cigarettes will therefore still be allowed in public places.

The ordinance requires businesses to post information regarding the ban in their establishments. Businesses and smokers that are found in violation of the ban will be fined accordingly.

Many doctors, health professionals and citizens spoke in support for the ban. Alabama Secretary of State Beth Chapman, whose husband died of a respiratory illness from smoking, was the first speaker. She expressed one of the most compelling arguments, saying that secondhand smoke has been ignored for too long as a public health concern.

“We as a society would never intentionally bruise the bodies of a person with hemophilia, or put large amounts of sugar into the bodies of people with diabetes against their will, so why should we allow others to put large amounts of smoke into the bodies of people with respiratory illnesses against their will?” she asked the council.

“We live in a society where we demand that people not push their principles, politics or religion on us, yet we allow them to push cancer-causing chemicals on us and it is time that we politely ask them to stop. You as a city council have the power to do that today.”

Champions for Health, which includes the American Heart Association, commended the Birmingham City Council’s decision.