Protect Local Control

Ensuring Community Rights
To Pass Smokefree Ordinances
 

State Status

No Preemption

Quote

"The immediate implications for our business are clear: if our consumers have fewer opportunities to enjoy our products, they will use them less frequently and the result will be an adverse impact on our bottom line. Even more important, accommodation / preemption laws shape the real-world environment in which our customers and their non-smoking friends and associates live every day. If smokers are banished to doorways and loading docks in front of buildings, it makes smokers feel like outcasts and gives encouragement to the antis. On the other hand, if we live in a society that accommodates smokers and non-smokers alike, it sends the message that smoking is a viable life-style choice and an adult's decision to use a legal product should be respected."

Tina Walls
Philip Morris (PM)

Arkansas

The Arkansas Clean Indoor Air Act went into effect on July 21, 2006. The law restricts smoking in workplaces, but allows smoking in non-public businesses with two or fewer employees, and in any restaurant or bar that prohibits people under age 21 at all times.

This law has significant flaws but it sets a strong floor, not a ceiling, for smokefree protections. It is a good step forward because it does not have provisions, such as smoking rooms, that would be barriers to future progress, and it has a strong anti-preemption clause that allows local communities to enact stronger laws. Read the Arkansas Clean Indoor Air Act.

To learn more about the law, visit Breathe Easy Arkansas.
To report a compliance concern
with the smokefree law, use the online complaint form.

Arkansas also enacted laws for smokefree state university campuses (effective August 1, 2010) and for smokefree cars when children are present who are required to be in child safety seats.


Arkansas law does not preempt the passage of local smokefree laws. Read more about current tobacco-related legislation in Arkansas.

Current tobacco-related statistics are available from the Centers for Disease Control's Tobacco Control State Highlights, 2010.

Arkansas's 2018 Legislative Session: February 12 - March 14

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