SPRINGFIELD - State officials are mulling over whether a statewide smoking ban that takes effect next year will force residents of some fraternity and sorority houses to take their cigarettes outside.

Kimberly Parker, spokeswoman for Illinois Department of Public Health, said that working out the details of the indoor smoking ban that takes effect Jan. 1 includes considering whether privately owned Greek system houses should be smoke free.

"But nothing has been finalized as of yet," Parker said.

Fraternity and sorority houses join other gray areas that exist in the law, including outdoor beer gardens at bars, for example, said Illinois Lung Association spokeswoman Kathy Drea.

What's clear, she said, is that no one can smoke in a public place or 15 feet from a door, she said.

"And really, that's what matters," Drea said.

Parker said she didn't know who brought up campus Greek housing as a consideration for the ban.

Drea said it wasn't her organization. The new law reflects a previous one that bans smoking in all college residence halls or university-owned fraternity and sorority houses.

But it's the off-campus, private Greek houses that could be in question.

Spokesmen at Illinois State University in Normal and Millikin University in Decatur, for example, said the Greek housing there is private. While individual organizations there could put in their own smoking bans in their houses, they don't have to.

At Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, some Greek houses are owned by the university, and some aren't, said Larry Dietz, vice chancellor for student affairs.

Like many others, SIU had no-smoking policies in university buildings in place before the dormitory law was approved last year, Dietz said.

Dietz said he suspects smokers get annoyed that they might have to use trees for wind blocks on cold, windy days, but he said he hasn't encountered much trouble in enforcing the ban.

"Everyone has been respectful," he said.

A decision on whether the houses will be included in the ban could be made in the coming weeks.