Workplace Smoking Rules in Hawaii

Employers in Hawaii must comply with these state rules regulating smoking in the workplace.

Hawaii prohibits smoking in all enclosed or partially enclosed areas, including in all enclosed or partially enclosed areas of places of employment.

Employers covered: Employer means a person, business, partnership, association, corporation, including the state or any of its political subdivisions, a trust or nonprofit entity that employs the services of one or more individual persons, but does not include the United States.

Written policy requirements: Employer policy not specified.

Posting requirements: Smoking is prohibited in any place in which a sign conforming to the following requirements is posted. Clearly legible signs that include the words Smoking Prohibited By Law with letters of not less than one inch in height or the international "No Smoking" symbol, consisting of a pictorial representation of a burning cigarette enclosed in a red circle with a red bar across it, must be clearly and conspicuously posted in and at the entrance to every place open to the public and place of employment where smoking is prohibited by law by the owner, operator, manager, or other person in control of that place.

No smoking areas: Smoking is prohibited in all enclosed or partially enclosed areas, including buildings and vehicles owned, leased, or operated by the state or any county. Smoking is prohibited in all enclosed or partially enclosed areas open to the public and all enclosed or partially enclosed areas of places of employment. Smoking is also prohibited in the enclosed and partially enclosed areas and in seating areas of sports arenas, outdoor arenas, stadiums and amphitheaters.

Smoking is prohibited within a presumptively reasonable minimum distance of 20 feet from entrances, exits, windows that open, and ventilation intakes that serve an enclosed or partially enclosed area where smoking is prohibited. Owners, operators, managers, employers, or other persons who own or control a place open to the public or place of employment may seek to rebut the presumption that 20 feet is a reasonable distance by submitting an application to the Department of Health. The presumption is rebutted if the applicant can show by clear and convincing evidence that given the circumstances presented by the location of entrances, exits, windows that open, ventilation intakes, or other factors, smoke will not infiltrate into the place open to the public or place of employment.

Permitted smoking areas: The following areas are generally exempt from the general smoking ban:

• private residences, except when used as a licensed child care, adult day care, or health care facility
• hotel and motel rooms that are rented to guests and are designated as smoking rooms, provided that not more than 20 percent of rooms rented to guests in a hotel or motel may be so designated. All smoking rooms on the same floor must be contiguous and smoke from these rooms must not infiltrate into areas where smoking is prohibited by law. The status of rooms as smoking or nonsmoking may not be changed, except to add additional nonsmoking rooms
• retail tobacco stores, provided that smoke from these places does not infiltrate into areas where smoking is prohibited by law
• private and semiprivate rooms in nursing homes and long-term care facilities that are occupied by one or more persons, all of whom are smokers and have requested in writing to be placed in a room where smoking is permitted, provided that smoke from these places does not infiltrate into areas where smoking is prohibited by law
• outdoor areas of places of employment except those covered by other provisions of the law
• all areas covered by the smoking law when smoking is part of a production being filmed
• state correctional facilities