Yet another solution to a nonexistent problem. So this is what yet another 94-cent-per-pack cigarette tax hike pays for huh? Fewer rights for the people keeping the lights on? You'd think a venue like the Minnesota State Fair would welcome the financial contributions of however many suckers they can con into pouring good money to walk around in a massive crowd. Instead they're giving 20% of the population an excuse not to attend. Hopefully smokers either boycott en masse or else violate the law by smoking freely. How do you reason with people whose passion for kicking smokers in the crotch exceeds their passion for making fists full of cash?

What is the motivation for further limits on OUTDOOR smoking? Is it the smell, the litter, the air quality, or something else? Indoors, it absolutely makes sense due to the secondhand smoke, but outdoors it just seems to be making new rules because some people simply don't like it. If it's about litter, why just smoking and not food bags and drink cups? If it's about the smell, we're talking about the State Fair, lots of things smell bad. It often seems like people just want to make new rules about smoking (or any other unpopular activity) because it's an easy way to fill up the agenda of a meeting and say "look, we did something."

A new survey shows the adult smoking rate in Minnesota has dropped to 16 percent, nearly a full percentage point lower than the smoking rate three years ago. Exposure to second-hand smoke in Minnesota is down dramatically too...................... This is great news for the 84% of the population that doesn't want someone else's habit in their lives. I just wish it had been implemented sooner. Thank you.

My partner has emphysema and finds it difficult to be around smoking. The Fair has allocated smoking areas which seems fair enough. Why should people be inundated with smoke which is hazardous to health.

Unfortunately smokers continue to show they cannot be considerate of others, smoking in areas that create a nuisance to other people and depositing their used cigs wherever they please (seriously? it's littering). SO I guess the state fair board is doing the right thing insofar as they can make reasonable rules regarding the use of their property.

Big brother strikes again.Will you be banning all forms of behavioral that causes illness? But I'm sure you will have a excuse for that community.

So it's perfectly acceptable and downright celebrated to have intoxicated, judgment-impaired fairgoers roaming the grounds freely making all the bad decisions that come from being under the influence of alcohol....but the person peaceably smoking a cigarette....they're the ones really putting you and your children in jeopardy! Example 4254 this week of how stark raving mad society has gone.

I think this is a move in the right direction. I always thought it was a bit backward having non-smoking areas instead if designating where people could smoke.

rej4sl, with all due respect, the smokestacks pouring out of the pork-chop-on-a-stick booth or any number of other food vendors are filled with about 1,000 times more carcinogens than some random smokers' cigarette. If yoour partner's emphysema is that volatile, the Minnesota State Fair is not the place for him or her to attend no matter how vicious they are towards smokers.

Good. I can't tell you the number of times either my kids or I inhaled someone's cig smoke, or almost got burned when someone with a cig in their hand in a crowded area. Not to mention the number of cigarette butts everywhere.