Free Republic

<p>MONTVILLE -- For 45 years, John and Alice Longo laughed and joked with their regular customers while they wiped down the bar and took lunch orders during the afternoon at A and J's Cafe on Route 32.</p> <p>But when they were forced to remove the ashtrays from the tables and bar, suddenly the laughter quieted.</p>

Smoked outSome companies now forbid workers to smoke anywhere on their property -- not on the sidewalk, not even in their cars in the parking lot.01:00 AM EST on Sunday, April 4, 2004BY JENNIFER LEVITZ Journal Staff Writer Everyone knows you can't smoke in the office anymore.But increasingly, you can't smoke outside work either.At Rhode Island Hospital, employees have a nickname for their designated outdoor smoking kiosks: butt huts.The workers, however, could consider themselves indulged that they're allowed to puff on the hospital's sprawling property at all.Because a few miles away at Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse, in Cranston, employees who...