Ashtrays across the county became paperweights today as an ordinance banning smoking in indoor workplaces -- including bars and restaurants -- took effect.

Regulars at the Fillin' Station on Lady's Island savored their last drags and tapped ashes into soon-to-be obsolete ashtrays up and down the smoke-filled bar Tuesday afternoon.

The Fillin' Station is a working-class bar, where owner Mark Wolf and his regulars say people come at the end of the day to relax, have a few drinks and smoke. The consensus there was that the government overstepped its authority with the ban.

"This is a contractor bar. You've got welders, roofers. They work their (rears) off and you tell them they can't smoke?" said regular Charles Callaway.

Callaway said the bar is likely to lose some of his business now that the ban has taken effect.

"I won't stay as long as I would. I'm not going to walk outside in the rain to smoke, I'll go home," he said.

Sue Cowart, 73, came to the bar Tuesday specifically to smoke there for the last time.

"I'm getting it in while I still can," Cowart, a smoker since she was 13, said Tuesday between puffs on a Virginia Slims cigarette.

Violators of the ban face a $500 fine and 30 days in jail, though Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner said his officers would not be proactively seeking out smokers violating the ordinance but will respond to calls about it.

Wolf, who also owns Kim's Place on U.S. 21 near the main entrance to Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, said he hopes the Beaufort County Council amends the ordinance to exempt establishments like his where people younger than 21 aren't permitted.

Wolf also said he went to the county Administration Building on Tuesday to apply for a 90-day waiver so his customers have extra time to "wean themselves off" cigarettes. Wolf said he was told the application forms weren't ready.

The application forms became available Tuesday afternoon. Last week, County Administrator Gary Kubic said the forms wouldn't be available initially because it didn't make sense to grant waivers for a law that wasn't in effect yet.

Application for the waiver comes with a $100 filing fee though approval is not guaranteed. According to the ordinance, Kubic would consider the health impact, the likelihood of compliance after 90 days and efforts of the applicant to comply before deciding whether to grant a waiver.

At the Lady's Island Country Club, Mike Carney smoked, drank and played cribbage with a friend at the bar but said he was indifferent to the ban.

"It really doesn't matter to me. People will get used to it," he said.