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The Capital District Celtic Cultural Association, St. Jude the Apostle School and St. Augustine Church were granted temporary waivers to allow smoking during their bingo games in the Troy Atrium. The groups, all nonprofit organizations that rely on bingo to help fund their activities, were the first in the county to apply for waivers. They showed the county they lost profits because of the smoking ban, said Rensselaer County Director of Environmental Health Roy Champagne.

"We had at one point considered giving bingo up," said Kevin Roe, director of the Celtic Cultural Association, which saw its profits decline 30 percent after the state's Clean Indoor Air Act took effect in July. "We're hopeful this will improve the situation to the point where we can depend on bingo to fund the operation of our programs."

The law prohibits smoking in bars, restaurants and other establishments that have employees. It includes a provision allowing businesses experiencing undue financial hardship because of the ban to apply to their local health departments for exemption waivers.

But the law didn't define what qualified as hardship, and county health departments struggled for months to develop an evaluation system -- with no guidance or financial help from the state. The state Health Department, which oversees 21 New York counties that don't have their own health departments, released its own standards in December.

Some supporters of the smoking ban, which was touted as a way to protect employees from secondhand smoke, fear the waivers could be the unraveling of the ban. Others see it as a way to keep the ban in place.

Russell Sciandra, director of the Center for a Tobacco Free New York and one of the ban's most ardent supporters, said Friday the Rensselaer County waivers were the right way to go. He said he was comfortable with the waivers, in large part because the waivers are contingent upon the bingo hall in the Troy Atrium maintaining a separate smoking room with an independent ventilation system. Workers at the hall are never required to enter the smoking room, so it protects nonsmokers, Sciandra said.

"I don't see that as an unraveling, as long as they require adequate protection for nonsmoking patrons and employees," Sciandra said. "Our concern is that this waiver situation is going to be used by (smoking ban opponents) to try to get loopholes written into the law."

Scott Wexler, the executive director of the Empire State Restaurant and Tavern Association and an outspoken critic of the ban, said his group will do exactly that if some business owners who show hardship are denied waivers.

"It could be very bad for the people who don't get waivers," said Wexler, adding that various counties are interpreting the waiver provision differently, with at least one county, Tioga, refusing to grant any.

Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, said last month he supports the waivers, but his office had no comment on Bruno's district being the first in the region to see them granted.