The following is a list of smoking bans in the United States. For smoking bans and restrictions outside the United States, see the worldwide list of smoking bans.
The United States Congress has not attempted to enact any nationwide federal smoking ban. Therefore, smoking bans in the United States are entirely a product of state and local criminal and occupational safety and health laws.
In 1995, California was the first state to enact a statewide smoking ban; throughout the early to mid 2000s, especially between 2004 and 2007, an increasing number of states enacted a statewide smoking ban of some kind. The most recent smoking ban, as of 2012, is North Dakota's statewide smoking ban, which was ratified by voters on November 6, 2012.
As further detailed in this list, smoking laws vary widely throughout the United States. Some places in the United States do not generally regulate smoking at all, some ban smoking in certain areas and not others, and some ban smoking nearly everywhere, even in outdoor areas (no state bans smoking in all public outdoor areas, but some local jurisdictions do). As of October 5, 2012, according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation, 81.3% of the U.S. population lives under a ban on smoking in "workplaces, and/or restaurants, and/or bars, by either a state, commonwealth, or local law,", though only 48.7% live under a ban covering all workplaces and restaurants and bars. A smoking ban (either state or local) has been enacted covering all bars and restaurants in each of the 60 most populated cities in the United States except these 16: Arlington, Texas, Atlanta, Fort Worth, Jacksonville, Memphis, Miami, Las Vegas, Nashville, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Tampa, Tulsa, and Virginia Beach.
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“The advice of their elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935)
“I feel most at home in the United States, not because it is intrinsically a more interesting country, but because no one really belongs there any more than I do. We are all there together in its wholly excellent vacuum.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)
“My list of things I never pictured myself saying when I pictured myself as a parent has grown over the years.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)
“half-way up the hill, I see the Past
Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,—
A city in the twilight dim and vast,
With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights,—
And hear above me on the autumnal blast
The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)
“The United States never lost a war or won a conference.”
—Will Rogers (1879–1935)
“The city of Washington is in some respects self-contained, and it is easy there to forget what the rest of the United States is thinking about. I count it a fortunate circumstance that almost all the windows of the White House and its offices open upon unoccupied spaces that stretch to the banks of the Potomac ... and that as I sit there I can constantly forget Washington and remember the United States.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)