Legalization includes an exemption to the Smoke-Free Illinois Act ban on indoor smoking, letting cities decide whether to allow on-site use at bars, restaurants, theaters, even new cannabis smoke lounges.

Since 2008, it’s been illegal to smoke indoors at most public places in Illinois. But smoking could once again be allowed at bars, restaurants, coffee shops and other businesses, even new cannabis smoke lounges and weed-friendly movie theaters and concert venues — if local officials approve that.

That’s under a largely overlooked provision of the new Illinois law legalizing recreational marijuana use and sales.

The law legalizing the recreational use of marijuana beginning Jan. 1 provides an exemption to the Smoke-Free Illinois Act that banned smoking at workplaces and most public places because of the health threat of secondhand smoke. A similar exemption already was in place for cigar lounges.

– Read the entire article at Sun Times.