JAMESTOWN - When Sherry Sand goes to work managing the Jamestown Truck Plaza Cafe these days, she no longer worries about cigarette smoke or the pills she took twice a day for five years to ease breathing and sinus problems.

Work conditions have changed for Dustin Dunn, as well. Now, he has to step outside Dakota Skies Bingo in Bismarck to enjoy a smoke, joining others in a parking lot hut that looks like a glorified bus shelter with no heat in the winter.

"I think it's stupid," he said of the indoor smoking restrictions that went into effect in North Dakota on Aug. 1.

Sand, who for 20 years dealt with health problems she attributed to customers' smoke, said she is ecstatic that smokers no longer control her life. She notices smells she had not smelled for years.

In mid-August, after the smoking ban took effect, she said, "I was walking through the restaurant and I said, 'Wow! Is that liver and onions?'"

The smoking law passed by the Legislature last year bans smoking in public areas and workplaces. Bars are exempt, including bars within hotels, clubs, restaurants and bowling alleys if the bar area is enclosed.

Six months after the law took effect, officials say it appears to be gaining acceptance, though not without grumbling from smokers and some business owners. And the issue appears far from settled, with some groups promising to fight for concessions and others poised to seek even stricter rules.

"There might be some shifting around the edges, but by and large I think it's here to stay," Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said. "Over the course of the next several years, it will probably get more stringent, and not less."

Stenehjem has issued seven legal opinions about the new law and has two more pending.

"I haven't seen - since I've been in office, and maybe not ever - a law that has generated as many questions as this one did, and as quickly," he said. "Most have to do with somebody looking to see if there might be a loophole in there. All of the opinions I've issued so far has said there just isn't."

That has been a problem for bingo halls in particular, which attract many people who smoke.

The North Dakota Association for the Disabled, which gets charitable gambling money from bingo parlors in Minot and Grand Forks, said its proceeds have been cut in half, forcing the association to eliminate 10 staff positions and cut its programming budget by $500,000.

President Ron Gibbens said association officials plan to meet this week with some state legislators to talk about proposals to help bingo halls, such as lower taxes or allowing electronic gambling.

Exempting bingo halls from the smoking ban, he said, "I think would be a real long shot."

Rep. Jim Kasper, R-Fargo, said he anticipates efforts during next year's Legislature to both loosen and tighten the ban. He expects a more organized effort by smoking opponents.

"The handwriting is already on the wall," Kasper said. "The e-mails that I receive from the nonsmoking groups - and there's a number of them - the press releases … you can see they're getting geared up for the next session, to move toward a bigger, more intrusive smoking ban."

Kasper favors local control over smoking laws. The statewide ban gives cities the authority to enact stricter regulations but not rules that are more lenient than the state's.

Bismarck is one city that has a stricter ban, barring smoking in restaurant bars even if the bars are enclosed.

Kevin Turnbow said that has devastated his bar and grill on the Missouri River, which has an enclosed bar. "A week after this happened I lost all of my regular customers," he said.

Turnbow has hired an attorney to help him try to refer the city ordinance to a public vote. He plans to begin circulating petitions as early as this week.

Pat McGeary, coordinator of the Bismarck Tobacco Free Coalition, said her office has received "overwhelmingly positive comments," on the ordinance.

"The reaction I get from people in Bismarck is 'hooray!'" City Commissioner Connie Sprynczynatyk said.

Turnbow said he believes it is unfair that the state law allows for different city ordinances. A business similar to his in neighboring Mandan can allow smoking, he said.

Dave MacIver, president of the Greater North Dakota Chamber of Commerce, and Stenehjem said they do not believe that portion of the law is unfair, though MacIver said it could be problematic for businesses located in more than one city.

"It's a question of local control," Stenehjem said.

That control belongs to businesses, said Nicki Weissman, executive director of the North Dakota Hospitality Association, which represents restaurants, lodging and beverage businesses.

"I believe that it is taking people's right to choose," she said. "Smokers are being made second-class citizens, and I don't believe that's right. If they take that away from them, what are they going to take away from me?

"It's that do-gooder mentality out there that everybody is supposed to save everybody," she said. "It's gotten to be quite a personal issue to me."

An estimated 80 percent of the people in North Dakota are nonsmokers, said Kathleen Mangskau, director of tobacco prevention and control for the state Health Department.