NEW YORK, NY March 31, 2003 — Bars and clubs have until May first to get used to telling their patrons to put out their cigarettes. The city's new smoking ban went into effect yesterday. The Health Department says it will only issue warnings for the first month - not fines. But as WNYC's Beth Fertig reports, bar owners are already worried about enforcement.

It was a typical Saturday night at Snooky's in Park Slope. A few neighborhood regulars sat around the bar drinking beer in a haze of smoke. But many knew the scene wouldn't last for long.

SHEEHAN: I was thinking I was going to enjoy my last few cigarettes at a bar.

Forty-four year old Kevin Sheehan was sitting with a pack of Marlboro Lights. In just a few hours, the city's new smoking law was about to change his nightlife.

SHEEHAN: Hopefully it will help me reduce my smoking because I do smoke too much and it's not a good habit but I don't think it's right.

Behind the counter, waitress Cynthia Powell was getting ready to post a handmade sign warning people not to smoke. The strict new law was created for people like her so they wouldn't have to breathe second-hand smoke at work.

POWELL: I didn't smoke until I started in this restaurant. My first week here I went home coughing every night and throwing up a lung, so I was like OK I'm just going to start smoking and I've been fine ever since then so I'm psyched about it because I'll quit now.

Though the ban officially took effect at twelve-oh-one A.M. on Sunday, the owner of Snooky's said he wouldn't enforce it until the bar reopened later that day. After all, the room was already filled with smoke. And patrons like Sheehan said they intend to comply.

SHEEHAN: I'll just be outside a lot more. Smoking outside.

But that's exactly what many bar owners are worried about. Robert Bookman is an attorney with the New York Nightlife Association.

BOOKMAN: If we enforce the law there's going to be a lot of people out on the street late at night, they're going to be making noise as people do, it's late at night and people will be complaining, the residents will be complaining. The police are going to wind up giving the nearest bar or lounge a ticket for disorderly premises or something similar to that..

The Health Department says the one month grace period was created so everyone can get used to the ban. Once enforced in May, the fines will range from 200 to 2000 dollars. But that will only apply to the business establishment - not the patrons - similar to the ban on smoking in restaurants and offices. And just as the city got used to THAT law, Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden expects bars and clubs will also get with the program. He notes that 4 out of 5 New Yorkers DON'T smoke and he says the rest will just have to adapt.

FRIEDEN: The concern I think of some of the bars is, if a large group congregates and gets disorderly outside that could affect their liquor license. But that's something they have to deal with now and they'll have to deal with in the future.

The police department says any disorderly conduct will be handled on a case by case basis. Enforcement inside the bars is really up to health department. But with warm weather on the way some bars aren't taking their chances.

Von on Bleecker Street is surrounded by residential buildings. Owner Charles Von Herrlich says he'll hire an extra employee to work the door.

VON HERRLICH: Certainly the bartenders are busy behind the bar. And if we get a group of people outside the bar, especially if they want to bring drinks outside - which people want to do if they're going to be smoking they'll want to have their drinks - we have to make sure they leave their drinks inside. Cause that's another conflicting law there.

His customers are sympathetic. A few days before the ban went into effect, Deb Stein was hanging out in the back with a few friends who smoke. She lived in San Francisco when that city passed a similar ban.

DEB STEIN: People got used to it really quickly. And they either went outside, you got to meet people that way - I used to smoke at the time, met people. The only pain in the ass was you had to leave all your stuff where you're sitting and hope someone's going to watch your, I don't know. It's just a big pain in the butt.

For WNYC I'm Beth Fertig.