VT: Smoking in the Workplace Law
Vermont’s law requiring employers to have smoking policies prohibiting smoking in the workplace and restricting smoking in designated smoking areas has been amended.
The use of lighted tobacco products is prohibited in the workplace, and provisions relating to employer smoking policies are repealed. “Workplace” is defined as an enclosed structure where employees perform services for an employer or, in the case of an employer who assigns employees to departments, divisions, or similar organizational units, the enclosed portion of a structure to which the employee is assigned.
Except for schools, “workplace” does not include areas commonly open to the public or any portion of a structure that also serves as the employee’s or employer’s personal residence. For schools, “workplace” includes any enclosed location where instruction or other school-sponsored functions are occurring and students are present.
Exceptions to the law provide that the law is not to be construed to restrict the ability of residents of the Vermont veterans’ home to use lighted tobacco products in the indoor area of the facility in which smoking is permitted. The law relating to smoking in public places has been amended with regard to exceptions, to limit exceptions to areas not commonly open to the public of owner-operated business with no employees.
(Act 32 (S. 7), L. 2009, at VT ¶47-2700)
Filed under: Vermont
