Staffers Keep Puffing as United Nations Votes to Ban Smoking at General Assembly

The last haven for nicotine addicts in New York City is going ... up in smoke.

The United Nations General Assembly voted this week to ban smoking at U.N. headquarters in New York, which for five years has offered a snug harbor for smokers in a city where the practice is outlawed in public places.

The U.N. buildings are located on international territory and are not subject to the city regulations that banned smoking in March 2003. As New Yorkers have adjusted, the U.N. has kept puffing happily away — but that may be about to change.

The non-binding resolution, passed by a unanimous vote of the 192-nation body, sounded a clear warning about the ill effects of second-hand smoke, which it said "can lead to disease, disability and death."

• Click here to see the U.N.'s no-smoking resolution.

Under the terms of the resolution, all indoor smoking and the sale of tobacco products on the premises will be outlawed — but it's not in effect just yet.

Clouds of cigarette smoke still rise in the U.N. delegates' lounge and cafes, as diplomats either haven't heard about the anti-smoking resolution or refuse to kick the habit.

The nicotine-nixing nabobs will now send their decision on to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who will have to choose whether to impose the ban.

Ban's predecessor, Kofi Annan, tried to establish a no-smoking regimen at the U.N. in 2003 — and failed miserably. U.N. staffers indulged themselves under large NO SMOKING signs at the General Assembly until the signs, not the smokers, got the boot.

FOX News' Jonathan Wachtel contributed to this report.