VATICAN CITY (AP)

Starting July 1, the Vatican announced smoking will be banned on premises open to the public, in offices and in vehicles used by the public. Those caught smoking will be fined nearly $30.

The law, which was approved by Pope John Paul II, did not specify the places where smoking was banned but presumably they include the Vatican museum, post offices, pharmacy and other locations accessible to the public in the otherwise closed city-state.

While even Italy, which has been lax on enforcement of smoking bans, has begun to crack down, the Vatican has been letting smokers puff away.  Until this year, smoking was permitted aboard the pope's plane when he traveled abroad. It is now banned.

One of John Paul's closest aides, Monsignor Dino Monduzzi, was known to rush out of papal audiences to light up. Now retired, Monduzzi was elevated to cardinal by the pope four years ago.

The Vatican Health Service said it had no figures on the number of Vatican employees who smoked.

With the new law, about the only legal smoke will be that pouring out of the Sistine Chapel chimney during a conclave to elect a new pope. The cardinals destroy their papal ballots and burn them with a chemical mixture, sending up black smoke if they fail to elect a pope and white smoke when they succeed.