Skokie, IL Public Conduct: Outdoor Smoking Restrictions (2026)

Skokie's Clean Indoor Air ordinance, codified in Chapter 54, Article III, does not stop at the building's walls. Section 54-71 sets a fixed outdoor buffer: smoking is prohibited within a minimum distance of 15 feet from entrances, exits, windows that open, and ventilation intakes that serve any enclosed area where smoking is already prohibited under the article. That buffer applies to every public place and place of employment covered by the ordinance, from restaurants and offices to retail stores and municipal buildings, and it is baked into the article's own definitions of 'public place' and 'place of employment' in Section 54-61.

On top of that mandatory buffer, Section 54-65 lets any employer, owner, occupant, lessee, operator or manager voluntarily extend the no-smoking rule to non-enclosed outdoor areas of a public place or workplace, such as a restaurant patio, sidewalk cafe seating, or a building's outdoor plaza, provided the smoke-free area is marked with the same conspicuous no-smoking signage required under Section 54-63(a) and (b). The definition of 'smoke or smoking' in Section 54-61 sweeps in lighted pipes, cigars, cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, e-liquid, and hookah devices, so the outdoor restrictions cover vaping as well as combustible tobacco.

The article traces its authority to the state Smoke Free Illinois Act, 410 ILCS 80, but Skokie's local ordinance supplies the specific 15-foot entrance buffer and the mechanism for businesses to go further outdoors, both matters the village enforces directly rather than leaving to the state.