DECATUR - Eight months after the Smoke-Free Illinois Act went into effect, banning smoking in public places and businesses, many are calling it a success. However, local health officials were left with questions about how to legally enforce the ban.

Some bar patrons say that the idea of compliance across the board is nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

"The act has been passed," said Steve Bertsch of the Macon County Health Department's environmental health division. "The code that goes with it has not."

Those agencies responsible for enforcing the ban are the Macon County Sheriff's Office and Decatur Police Department for individuals and the Macon County Health Department for businesses.

"The act is a law, so it does allow us to go ahead and do the enforcement, but not having the code limits the guidelines that we have to work with," Bertsch said.

The rules were submitted to the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules in November, but because there was no recourse clause for those wanting to fight their citations, they were de ;clared unconstitutional, said Jim Henricks, environmental health director for the Sangamon County Department of Public Health.

"So we're sort of in limbo at this point in time," he said.

There is a fine that can be issued by the local health department, but manpower and the lack of a code have slowed the department down, Bertsch said. Macon County has received about 60 complaints since January but hasn't been able to act on them. The main violation people are complaining about is smoking within 15 feet of an entryway, he said.

A first complaint generates an educational letter about the ban, and the second elicits a warning letter.

"Subsequent complaints, right now we haven't done anything with follow-ups except for we're working on compiling a list of repeat violators to do onsite investigations of," Bertsch said.

The health department doesn't issue the fine directly, he explained. It issues a violation notice, which is then referred to the state's attorney's office, and the fine is issued by a judge. But no local businesses have been fined, he said.

"The logistics," Bertsch said. "It's not cost-effective for us to fine them. We have to split the fine with the state, and we don't really have a logistical procedure in place at this time to split all that up."

The Sangamon County department has a system similar to the one in Macon County. Most establishments and patrons are adhering to the ban, Henricks said, but a few chronic violators have been suspected.

As of late July, the Decatur Police Department had not had any instances in which to enforce the ban, Deputy Chief James Chervinko said. And no individuals had been cited by the Macon County Sheriff's Office, according to Lt. Ed Culp, nor had establishments made complaints to the departments about patrons smoking.

Some state health officials say that the act is working fine, despite a delay in passage of the rules.

"I can't stress enough that we are very pleased with how the public has reacted and how business owners have complied with this new law," Tom Schafer, the Illinois Department of Public Health's deputy director of the office of health promotion, said.

Schafer said he believes instances of noncompliance are few and far between.

"There's no question that there are problems now and then that we are seeing throughout the state where people just don't want to comply with a new law," Schafer said.

Since the Smoke-Free Illinois Act went into effect, there have been about 4,000 complaints filed through the Web site, he said.

"I think complaints have gone down, and you're probably looking at 90 or 95 percent compliance with a law that infringes on something people have done all their life," he said, but that doesn't mean some aren't trying to skirt the law or that those enforcing the ban can afford to be lax.

The rules are clear-cut and refer back to the definition already given in the law, Shafer said.

"We really don't believe the rules are going to address the things that people are concerned about because they're really at the heart of how the law was written," Schafer said.

The idea that there is not due process is a misconception, he said.

"If you want to fight a ticket, you go to circuit court and you fight it," he said. "With this law, if you want to fight a ticket, you've got to go to court."

Schafer said local health departments and prosecutors in some areas of the state are reluctant or unsure of how to handle businesses openly flouting the law.

"This is a law that they need to enforce, and it's on the books," he said.

Schafer said a bill in the state legislature, not the passage of the rules by the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, is the key to clarifying the enforcement of the ban and alleviating the concerns of those responsible for enforcement who said they can't move forward because of a lack of due process.

"It's kind of stuck in the legislative process," he said.

A debate about including rules within the language of a bill must be settled within the state legislature before progress can be made, he said.

"But we think the legislative fix is the right way to go," Schafer said.

Prosecutors in some northern counties are "extremely aggressive but not having trouble with the law as written," he said.

"There is a law in effect," he said. "It's as clear as possible right now. It is enforceable."

Some local business owners have developed creative solutions to cater to their smoking clientele.

Frank Conaway, who co-owns Timbuktu with his wife, Charlene, has never agreed with the idea of forcing business owners to go smoke-free.

"I just think it should be a personal decision," he said.

But Conaway has made some changes to his establishment with hopes of appealing to his smoking customers and complying with the law.

"When it was cold, I got a little shack outside called the 'butt hut,' " Conaway said.

The shack, which had heaters and walls up in the winter, has a bar, TVs and a sound system, Conaway said. He opened it up for the summer.

"Most people spend most of their time outside," he said of his back patio area, which has no-smoking signs on the tables within 15 feet of the door.

A good portion of the staff smokes, Conaway said, and they also go outside. A smoker himself, Conaway said that even when he's alone in the bar after closing time, he is obligated to respect the law.

"Oh, they've gotten used to the idea," he said of his customers who are smokers. "I respected them, and they respected me."

Inside Timbuktu, Conaway said, the pleasant scent of the natural wood that makes up the interior has returned.

"You know, a lot of people were mad about it, but it is what it is," Annette Jackson, a bartender and server at Timbuktu said. "But luckily, Frank made it so we could please everyone."

Jackson, a social smoker herself, said she is not really concerned with the health implications of working in a smoky environment.

"It doesn't bother me because I figure a bar's a bar," she said.

Timbuktu patron Greg Smith, who was a chain-smoker for 30 years before quitting five years ago, found out in October of 2007 that he is allergic to smoke.

"I used to wake up in the night every hour and a half and have a Newport cigarette," he said.

He and Jackson said they have seen establishments in Decatur that are ignoring the smoking ban.

"They should do whatever it takes to make the law stick," Smith said.

Former bartender and Timbuktu patron Beth McCoy said the clientele of quite a few local bars has thinned out since the ban. She knows of two bars in town that have allowed customers to continue smoking.

"I'm not going to name the ones I know where you can go smoke because I don't want to get them in trouble," she said.

She, like Conaway, believes that the owners of bars and taverns should have had the choice of whether or not to make them smoke-free.

"I think there's a lot more things in this world a little more important than the police having to go out for someone smoking in a bar," she said.

agetsinger@herald-review.com|421-6968