Associate Health Minister Dipika Dameria announced starting January 1, 2015, it will be illegal to smoke on bar and restaurant patios - as well as playgrounds and public sports fields and surfaces, and sell tobacco on university and college campuses.

This change to the Smoke-Free Ontario Act comes from the province "taking action to protect children and youth from the harmful effects of smoking."

Michael Perley, Director of Ontario Campaign for Action on Tobacco says, "Smoke-free patios are a critical next step in protecting servers and the public from toxic second-hand tobacco smoke. Equally important, they’ll remove tobacco use as an apparently 'normal' part of friends and families enjoying socializing over food and drinks: tobacco industry products, with no safe level of use and which kill one in two long-term users, are anything but normal."