Judge declares smoking bans consitiutional

[manifold]

Nelson says neither the U.S. Constitution nor the state constitution creates a fundamental right to smoke in public.

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/midwest/2008/03/18/88339.htm


Don't mind me, I'm just rubbing a little salt in Shogun's brown lung.

 

[Ravi]

I was under the impression that a bar was a privately owned business, not a public place.

 

[manifold]

I was under the impression that a bar was a privately owned business, not a public place.

Where do you think the word "pub" comes from?

Geesh!

 

[manifold]

I was under the impression that a bar was a privately owned business, not a public place.

btw: Most pharmacies are also privately owned businesses. So I guess that means you support their right to not fill prescriptions for drugs that conflict with their moral beliefs.

 

[Ravi]

Depends on your definition of public.

So, if you make the bar a private bar then there shouldn't be a problem, correct?

 

[Ravi]

btw: Most pharmacies are also privately owned businesses. So I guess that means you support their right to not fill prescriptions for drugs that conflict with their moral beliefs.

But they are licensed and regulated. Why can't the same thing be done with a bar that allows smoking?

 

[manifold]

But they are licensed and regulated. Why can't the same thing be done with a bar that allows smoking?

Who said it can't?

Not me.

 

[Shogun]

An ohio county judge?


yes, now is the time to start celebrating!



Hey Ravir.. didn't you know that a private business is simply NOT private as long as the public walks through the doorway? I mean, the root word of BAR proves as much!

 

[manifold]

Depends on your definition of public.

So, if you make the bar a private bar then there shouldn't be a problem, correct?

I haven't researched the matter thoroughly, but I do believe that is the case. I think you can still smoke down at the old Elks lodge.

 

[manifold]

didn't you know that a private business is simply NOT private as long as the public walks through the doorway?

For better or worse, that's pretty much the fact of the matter.

 

[Ravi]

I haven't researched the matter thoroughly, but I do believe that is the case. I think you can still smoke down at the old Elks lodge.

If that's the case I don't understand what all the fuss is about. But I've never seen a bar that called itself a private club and allowed smoking.

Then again, I don't spend that much time in bars.

 

[Shogun]

says a county judge in ohio.


clearly, this is not headed for a higher court.

 

[manifold]

hmmm?

From the Boston Globe

SJC: Local health board can ban smoking in private clubs
By Denise Lavoie, AP Legal Affairs Writer | March 22, 2006

BOSTON --With anti-smoking laws making it tougher for smokers to find a place to light up, members of the American Lithuanian Naturalization Club of Athol thought they had held on to a small sanctuary for smokers when a judge ruled that the town did not have the authority to extend a statewide ban on workplace smoking to the town's private clubs.

But the state's highest court overturned that on Wednesday, ruling that local boards of health can ban smoking in private clubs.

The Athol Board of Health, in passing the regulation, said private clubs should be bound by the same rules as commercial workplaces when it comes to protecting employees from secondhand smoke.

The Lithuanian club, along with the Franco-American Naturalization Club and the American Legion Post #102, challenged the validity of the regulation, arguing that because they are private clubs and not generally open to the public, the board had no authority to prohibit smoking on their property.

In December 2004, a Superior Court judge ruled that the health board did not have the authority to restrict smoking in private clubs since they do not directly affect the public.

But the Supreme Judicial Court found that the 2004 law establishing the statewide ban on workplace smoking "expressly permits" additional smoking regulations by local authorities.

"This is like hitting a home run in Fenway Park," said Athol town lawyer Mark Goldstein.

"Our goal is to protect the public," he said. "The board of health felt that second-hand smoke is a real health problem, and even though some members want to go there and smoke, there are people -- workers, vendors and other members of the club -- who may not want to be exposed to second-hand smoke."

Members of the Lithuanian Club were disappointed by the ruling.

"It's too bad," said Jim White, financial secretary for the club. "We're in an age where everybody is anti-smoking anyway. We're fighting an uphill battle to begin with."

The SJC said the Legislature had sound reasons for leaving the regulation of membership associations to local authorities, citing the wide variety of private clubs in the state. Some clubs have employees, others invite members of the public and guests, while others are strictly for members only.

"Recognizing the broad range of membership associations throughout the Commonwealth, the Legislature did not determine that smoking 'shall be prohibited' in all such associations; it expressly left it to local boards of health to establish smoking restrictions, should they deem it appropriate," Chief Justice Margaret Marshall wrote for the court in the unanimous ruling.

Christopher Banthin, an attorney who represented the Athol Board of Health, said he sees the ruling as a message from the court that "all levels of government need to be engaged in public health."

"Public health is an important issue now, and they are not going to limit it and say it can only be handled at the state level," said Banthin, who is deputy director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute, established by faculty of Northeastern University School of Law and the graduate programs in Public Health at Tufts University School of Medicine.

Banthin said there are more than two dozen communities in Massachusetts that ban or restrict smoking in private clubs, including Boston, Braintree, Cambridge, Chicopee and Everett.

John Townsend, general counsel for the Boston Public Health Commission, said he was pleased by the court's ruling. Boston has a regulation that bans smoking in private clubs if they have employees.

"We feel that the ruling reaffirms the board of health's powers to address public health issues at a local level," Townsend said.

 

[Ravi]

Wow, that's a pretty stupid ruling, IMO. The workers and vendors have a choice. I would imagine this could also be applied to strip joints if taken far enough. What if the employees are exposed to naked people? Or gambling...isn't that an addiction now? How many innocent blackjack dealers might become gambling addicts?

 

[Shogun]

im tellin ya...


it's the dark stain of liberal politics and is pretty much the antithesis of right wing religious zealotry.


You know how pink lunger ALWAYS say that a ban on smoking increases business while failing to tell you how they manipulated the stats? Do a search on the smoking ban in Columbia Missouri and Maryville Missouri and discover the fact of the matter. If privacy means nothing in America as long as there is a pink lunger vendetta against smokers then it's only a matter of time before the same restriction of property rights comes back to haunt. After all, nothing, and I mean NOTHING, says public hazard like estimated projected statistics and that scourge of cancer ridden bartenders falling out all over the place.


That is, if county judges in ohio don't rise up.

 

[manifold]

Wow, that's a pretty stupid ruling, IMO. The workers and vendors have a choice. I would imagine this could also be applied to strip joints if taken far enough. What if the employees are exposed to naked people? Or gambling...isn't that an addiction now? How many innocent blackjack dealers might become gambling addicts?

Workers and vendors have the same choice at any old bar or restaurant, so obviously that doesn't mean anything. Again, just an observation, not an editorial endorsement, so settle down beavis...err...shogun.

 

[Ravi]

Workers and vendors have the same choice at any old bar or restaurant, so obviously that doesn't mean anything.

That doesn't make any sense.

 

[manifold]

Workers and vendors have the same choice at any old bar or restaurant, so obviously that doesn't mean anything.

That doesn't make any sense.

Sure it does. They have a choice to work there or not. I thought that was what you meant.

 

[Ravi]

Yuh. You still aren't making sense.

 

[Shogun]

It really is no wonder why Kelo V New London turned out the way it did with this kind of erosion of personal property rights.