I work at a community college about an hour north of Chicago. We ran into this problem here and by ran into, I mean were the only ones who cared enough to look into the law during a recent production of
The Glass Menagerie where the director wanted Tom to
smoke.
As for the Illinois state law, There is no smoking of any kind allowed inside a public building. The law states, "
Smoke" or "smoking" means the carrying, smoking, burning, inhaling, or exhaling of any kind of lighted pipe, cigar,cigarette, hookah, weed, herbs, or any other lighted smoking equipment." This includes hookahs, pipes, cigars, cigarillos, cloves,
etc.
etc. It also specifically defines "indoor theaters" as public spaces. So nuts to them!
We bought two of the electronic cigarettes with some flavor I can't remember but with cartridges that do not have nicotine or a tobacco flavor. They look real enough to me and you still get that puff of
smoke out of the actor's mouth which is nice. No one has complained so far but I imagine it will happen one of these days. I do not consider these "lighted" smoking equipment as they are battery powered.
I took the time to write to the Illinois Arts Council after some research online and asked what they were doing to
gain an exception for theaters in Illinois. I got a very quick response from the director saying that he had forwarded my E-mail on to another group representing the LOTR theaters in Chicago and that they were working on the issue with the state legislature. I've yet to hear anything else but I appreciated the reply none the less.
I know this was an issue for
Jersey Boys when it toured in the city but I don't know how it was resolved. My recollection is that one night was canceled and after they failed to get a waiver they cut it from the show. Don't quote me on that however.
As for my personal take on this overly long reply to a simple question, I say
smoke em if you got them and take on the lawsuit/fine if it ever comes. I understand not using actual tobacco products on
stage, but it is completely ridiculous not to take the performing arts into consideration when drafting laws like this. To ban smoking from a
play would be to change the nature of what the author intended in his or her script.