BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) – A statewide ban on smoking in bars and pubs went into effect Thursday, making Vermont the ninth state to add bars to previous smoking bans in restaurants and workplaces.

In effect, the ban outlaws smoking inside almost all public places.

The law means air inside bars will be clearer and bartenders will be able to go home without their hair and clothes smelling of smoke.

Now bar patrons will have to duck outside for a smoke. Some bar owners fear it will hurt business.

Officials in the four Chittenden County communities where smoking has been banned in bars for more than a year reported no violations.

“Other communities will discover it’s not the end of the world,” Burlington Mayor Peter Clavelle said.

Nonsmokers might filter through the doors more often, especially at bars that offer a full menu of food. Whether they come as often or spend as much money as the smoking regulars did is a matter of speculation.

Some bar owners will say the ban is killing their business. Others will say that, against all fears, it is not.

Larry Crist, director of the state Department of Health’s Division of Health Protection, said bar owners should hang on. When the state’s smoking ban in restaurants went into effect in 1993, there were fears that restaurants would go out of business.

The Health Department tracked the trend for about eight years, he said, and found a slight dip in sales for the first three months or so, then a rebound. That, he said, has been the trend wherever smoking bans have been instituted.

Pat Finnigan, the owner of Finnigan’s Pub in Burlington, said the law should give him a level playing field. He has watched regular customers flee, first to private clubs in the city and then to neighboring towns when the ban extended there.

Those changes have taken their toll, Finnigan said. He is working longer hours, concentrating more on live entertainment and making sure he has the right sports TV packages.

“We came very, very close – within weeks – of making a decision of calling it quits,” Finnigan said.