The smoking ban is not yet in effect on South Dakota. Its inhabitants have to wait until January 2011 for a statewide smoking ban to actually take effect.

Press Department wrote that enough signatures have been collected for a petition to permit voters to decide if they want a cigarette smoking ban or not.

The petition needed at least 16,776 signatures in order to make it on the ballot for voters on November 2010, and Larry Mann, coordinator of the petition, said even more signatures would be collected.

Mr. Mann said: "We’re in good shape as far as signatures needed. Now we’re just trying to build a buffer".

The smoking ban is supposed to take effect July 1st, and which will make smoking tobacco illegal in public places such as bars, restaurants and video lottery establishments.

The results of the petition are being observed not only by residents of South Dakota, but also by bar owners in Nebraska. On June 1st, Nebraska’s smoking ban took effect and a few bars owners have tried to combat it.

Joann Sprakel, the owner of the Sports Stop Bar in Crofton, Neb., explained: "The bigger bars can fight it because they have more income. For most of the other bars, it’s hard to fight the ban because they are dealing with limited revenue."

Sprakel added that the smoking ban has affected her bar, especially at night when clients are drinking. In order to maintain her income, she started a beer garden outside her establishment.

And not only she took such a solution but also many other bars have come up with the same solution.

In this way customers can go outside to the beer garden and have a smoke, and "I am just trying to make my customers happy," said Sprakel.

But Sprakel said the biggest dissatisfaction she has about the ban is when the government told her and other bars owners what they can and cannot allow within their own businesses.

She explained: "The government is trying to control small businesses, and that makes it hard on me when I am trying to make a living with my business".

South Dakota bar owners have expressed the same interest about the smoking ban.