This year, the Alaska State Fair went totally smoke-free. Here's how it's working out.

PALMER — The Alaska State Fair is entirely smoke-free for the first time this year, becoming perhaps the first fair in the country to take that step.

The 12-day event that drew nearly 300,000 attendees in 2015 is now the only fair in the nation to ban smoking not just cigarettes but also vape pens and e-cigarettes inside the gates, according to clean-air advocates. Smoking is also prohibited within 40 feet of the main entrances.

In recent years, the fair allowed smoking in nine designated areas, including behind the Colony Theater, outside the Sluicebox Bar and the carnival midway.
Now smokers must use four designated areas in small chain-link pens accessed through openings in the fairground fence.

Smoker Justin Pletnikoff shrugged at the new policy as he worked The Zipper ride Monday.

Pletnikoff used to light up when he got a break from the Golden Wheel Amusements ride that sends 12 cars flipping unpredictably on an oval circuit. Now he has to duck over to one of the designated areas nearby.

"It's cutting back on my smoking," he said.

But colleague and ferris-wheel operator Warren Schierholt was much less enthusiastic.

"I think it's stupid," Schierholt said.

He can understand banning smoke on the packed midway, Schierholt said. People who don't "cup" their lit smokes in their hands can easily burn other fairgoers if they're not careful.

But until now, the fair offered a smoking area with picnic tables that, among other things, let smokers do their thing while their families sat nearby, away from the smoke.

"I know a lot of people that refuse to come to the fair because it's smoke-free," he said.

Fair officials and smoke-free advocates say they've heard little such grumbling.

The move was approved by the fair board in January. Backers of the fair's new status say it protects fairgoers from the health risks of other people's smoke.

Skeptics like to point out that an event that involves burgers stacked between doughnut buns, head-sized cream puffs and meats on sticks isn't exactly a bastion of public health.

But smoking ban advocates dismiss such arguments.

"There's no such thing as second-hand fair food," said Ashley Peltier, co-chair of Breathe Free Mat-Su and lung health manager for the Mat-Su office of the American Lung Association in Alaska.

Before the fair began, Peltier trained almost 300 people — 200 fair staff, security, and more than 80 volunteers — to educate smokers about the new policy and direct them to the smoking areas.

She said the overarching training message was to show empathy and prioritize education.

The volunteer corps has roved the fairgrounds handing out "Be Smoke Free" pins (with a picture of a bee) and pointing smokers to the designated areas.
Peltier and others — including fair security and Palmer police — said they encountered little resistance.

"I think more and more people are getting used to smoke-free environments," she said. "That's becoming the norm."

It's enough the norm that the International Association of Fairs & Expositions no longer tracks limits on smoking, according to president and CEO Marla J. Calico.

Going smoke-free, or at least limiting smoking to certain areas, has been a trend at fairs for at least five years, Calico wrote in an email. She started monitoring media reports about the trend in 2009 and stopped last year after finding 33 different ones.

"I've not been monitoring it since because it seems more the norm, rather than some new and significant move," Calico said.