People Ban: CO State Update Page 5

Denver airport will close three of four smoking lounges

5/18/12
By Ann Schrader

By year’s end, Denver International Airport will be nearly smoke free with all but one of the four smoking lounges shut down.

“Now is the time to clear the air,” said Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, when announcing the move toward ending smoking within the airport.

The lounges that will close later this year include the Aviator’s Lounge locations in the main terminal and on Concourse B.

The lounge in the terminal will become Jamba Juice and the Concourse B lounge will reopen as the Aviator’s Sports Bar, a full service barbecue restaurant.

The third lounge scheduled to close is located inside the Mesa Verde Restaurant and Bar on Concourse A.

Mesa Verde will remain open during remodeling and will gain additional seating including a patio area.

Hancock said that he anticipates the city will reach agreement about the fourth smoking lounge which could close in the near future.

The fourth one is Timberline Steaks & Grill on Concourse C.

Its lease runs until 2018 but officials believe they can work with the concessionaire to revamp the space prior to the end of the lease.

“I just paid $3 to smoke a cigarette. The state is going to lose a lot of money,” Kim Hefner.

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LETTER:
Dear Mayor Hancock,
I am a frequent business traveler, and visit many cites around the US. I am also a smoker, so I choose locations that are friendly to smokers when I have a choice. And that includes the air port – especially the air port. DIA has been one of the better air ports in the US because you had smoking lounges in each terminal. This means I do not have to go out side, and I spend money on gifts, food, drinks, and hotels when I stay or get stuck on missed flights. I also have chosen conferences in Denver/Colorado when I had a choice of two and the other one had a air port I could not smoke at.
I saw you wanted to close the smoking lounges – why? There is only one per terminal, with plenty of room for non-smokers – in fact the vast majority of the terminals are non smoking. If these close Denver is not a good choice for flights in the winter as they have many more delays than say Phoenix. They are also colder – I am not going to go outside to smoke in January. And this also means United will get less flights as that is the air line that gets me to Denver. I will take Delta through SLC instead as they do welcome smokers.
I hope you will reverse this decision. If you look at the comments in the Denver Post (where I heard about this) they are overwhelmingly against this action. I hope you uphold the will of the people, and I look forward to spending money in your city for years to come. If DIA goes no smoking – my last dollars will have been spent that day.
Regards,
Robert Deitz, II

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Colorado public health researchers push for even tougher anti-smoking rules

03/07/2012
By Michael Booth

Citizens and public health advocates want to impose new, airtight smoking restrictions at doorways, restaurant patios and open park space, bolstered by studies showing remarkable heart attack reductions in cities with strict laws.

They face increasing resistance from businesses and smoking-rights supporters who say freedom has already eroded too far.

“The anti-smoking people will not be satisfied until no one smokes,” said Pete Meersman of the Colorado Restaurant Association, who lobbies against more restrictions.

And their unapologetic response is: Get over it. The laws save more and more lives. Might as well quit now.

Other states and local communities, they add, are getting even tougher, including California laws that protect apartment dwellers from the smoker next door, and kids riding in their smoking parents’ cars.

“We should be as aggressive as possible in reducing smoking, quite honestly in as many ways as we can,” said John Hokanson, a public health researcher at the Colorado School of Public Health at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

“There is still more to be done because secondhand smoke is dangerous. There is so much data,” said Jenny Merriman, a former public health nurse in Lakewood who is in a group advising the city to further shrink smoking areas. “All we can do is keep plugging away.”

A vote on tighter rules

The Lakewood City Council will vote in April on tighter rules that have split politicians, business owners and nonsmokers. The proposals under consideration include 25 feet of smoke-free clearance at doorways instead of 15 feet, and no-smoking protections in the “gathering places” of parks.

Some on a citizens advisory committee worked nearly three years to go further than that, including a complete ban on patios and in all parks and trails, and a five-year phaseout of allowing smoking inside tobacco-sales sites such as “cigar bars.”

“There’s no such thing as a right to smoke,” said Matthew Moore, an attorney with the Tobacco Control Legal Consortium that advises communities seeking more restrictions in California. “It’s not in the Constitution, it’s never been recognized by a court of law. The idea is when you expose the person next to you with that smoke, you’re infringing on their right to breathe clean air.”

Smoking-rights groups are coming up with slogans of their own, including “secondhand damage” done to bars and nearby businesses when new bans reduce patron traffic. They say nonsmokers can exercise their freedom of choice by not entering smoking areas, rather than infringe more on the freedom of smokers.

Lakewood restaurant owner Chad Hotchkiss, who also served with Merriman in the advisory group, said the new rules go too far and would hit businesses that invested responsibly in meeting older laws. He has a separate patio for nonsmokers and would happily shift any staff member who worried about smoke.

“If you ban it on patios, it will affect my business. It comes down to letting the businesses decide these things once in a while,” he said.

Jefferson County public health officials, who support the new Lakewood restrictions, are also laying groundwork for efforts elsewhere, including unincorporated areas housing tens of thousands of people.

California cities are rapidly passing much tighter restrictions in housing and public areas. Pasadena, for example, has given apartment owners 18 months to make all existing units nonsmoking.

Supporters cite the most recent research backing up national statistics: the “Greeley heart study.”

Heart attacks there fell 27 percent after the city passed smoking restrictions for public places in 2003 (even tougher than the statewide anti-smoking rules launched in 2006). Even more striking, heart attacks in smokers fell 56 percent, as restrictions made them smoke less while reducing their exposure to other smoke.

Hokanson and the other study authors say heart attack rates in general were probably falling in the U.S. at the same time but that the Greeley drop is significant and mirrors previous studies. The study, a collaboration between physicians and public health researchers in Colorado, was published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Medicine.

Dangers of smoke

Researchers say evidence is also piling up on the persistent dangers of smoke. Clouds of tobacco smoke linger at breathing level even outdoors, they argue. And apartment studies show a nonsmoker’s dwelling will share 30 percent of its air with next-door neighbors.

“(Smoking) is still the No. 1 preventable cause of death,” said Bob Doyle of the Colorado Tobacco Education and Prevention Alliance. “Tobacco still causes about a third of all cancers. My goal is to give Colorado the lowest tobacco-use rate for adults and kids in our country.”

Colorado currently ranks about 17th in the nation, with 16 percent of adults smoking. That number, however, is down sharply from 23 percent in the 1990s.

Federal health officials estimate that tobacco kills 443,000 people a year nationwide, causing one in every five deaths.

The response from some smoking-rights advocates is that since cigarettes are a waning product, why further isolate those few left using them?

Keeping the right to smoke on restaurant patios was a specific reason the lobby was willing to go along with the 2006 Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act, Meersman said.

Act is “working well”

“It’s working well,” said Meersman, who said business owners resist a “patchwork quilt” of local anti-smoking laws that can drive patrons across the street or across the county line. “As less and less people smoke, it will become less and less of an issue,” he said.

After years of push-and-resist in Lakewood, said Mayor Bob Murphy, “this is one of those issues where at the end of the day there will be some unhappy people. There are some legitimate questions about the role of government, and that’s something I’m hearing from council members.”

Of Lakewood’s 401 restaurants, 34 choose to permit smoking on patios, Murphy said, and many made significant “good faith” investments to accommodate everyone.

Murphy believes the council will pass reasonable compromises, such as on open space. Smoking would be banned in the stands at a baseball field or a concert pavilion, he said.

“But if someone’s smoking on the 14th hole at Fox Hollow, that’s not something we can enforce, and we’re not going to write a law we can’t enforce,” Murphy said.

Merriman, full of frustration and leaving a City Council study session on the issue, hit an outdoor cloud from smokers not standing far enough away from the building entrance.

“I spoke to them,” Merriman said. “I said, you are too close. No matter where you are, you are bound to come in contact with smoke.”

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New bill could allow smoking back in bars
By Ed Sealover, Rocky Mountain News
January 21, 2009?
Portions of Colorado’s 21/2-year-old indoor-smoking ban could be in jeopardy under a bill expected to be introduced soon.
The bipartisan measure would classify bars, restaurants, racetracks and parts of casinos as cigar-tobacco bars if they have a humidor and make 5 percent of annual gross income or $50,000 in annual sales from tobacco products. Patrons would be required to buy the cigarettes or cigars they smoke at these bars.
The Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act, passed in 2006, bans smoking in most indoor locations in the state, and a 2007 law nixed puffing at casinos, which had been exempt from the original legislation.
Sponsors of the measures said they were meant to protect workers’ health.
But the original legislation exempted cigar bars, and establishments ranging from dive bars to casinos tried to use the loophole to allow patrons to light up.
The new bill would clarify the definition of such bars — and expand it.
It first would eliminate a clause that cigar bars that wish to be exempt from the smoking ban must have been in place since 2005.
Under the bill, the cigar-tobacco bars would have to apply for a special license, ban anyone under 18 and post signs that smoking is allowed. No more than 25 percent of the space in most casinos could be a smoking area.
Rep. Don Marostica, who will be the prime House sponsor, said the effort is driven partly by tales from bar and casino owners about massive losses of business since the ban was enacted.
But it also largely is a matter of wanting business owners and adult patrons to be able to choose the rules under which they operate, said the Loveland Republican, who says he smokes no more than a couple of cigars a year.
“There’s a lot of bars in Adams County that have gone down and under (since the smoking ban), and this just gives them a way to reclaim their business,” said Thornton Democratic Rep. Ed Casso, also a sponsor. “Literally, not every bar is going to convert over to being a smoking bar, but it gives them the option if they want to do that.”
However, Stephanie Steinberg, chairwoman of Smoke-Free Gaming of Colorado, said the bill will push Colorado back in time and negate gains that bar and casino workers have made in recent years. The measure, which comes after the state’s three gambling towns recently approved expanded gaming, will come at the expense of employees’ health, she said.
Her group is working to convince the sponsors to pull their names from the bill and is expecting a fierce fight in the legislature, Steinberg said.
“The bill basically repeals the Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act,” she said. “It’s a way to profit off people who have tobacco addiction.”

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Petition:? Undo Colorado’s unfair smoking Ban
Target:To have business owners decide not the government
Sponsored by: Kelly Pennington
In 2006 there was a ban placed on Colorado’s restaurants, bars, etc. The government decided for the people that smoking was not allowed indoors. Since then the economy in Colorado has hurt because of this, many locally owned bars and restaurants have closed because of this. If the non-smokers frequented all these place this would not have happened. It should have clearly been up to the businesses not the government. People worry about what smoking does to them, well I’m here to say that cars produce more harmful chemicals into the air then smoking does. We can not ban everything just because we disagree with it. As for the the non-smokers worrying about their health as they go to the bar and drink, you will not be hurt by a night in a smokey room just as you will not harm your body forever by a night of a few drinks.
If you are tired of having the government deciding for you and you think that businesses should have the right to decide whether they are smoking or not please sign this petition.

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Tobacco prohibitionists complaining that Colorado is spending tobacco settlement on useful programs

November 30, 2008
by Rocky Mountain Right

The anti-tobacco lobby is throwing a hissy fit in today’s Denver Post that not enough of Colorado’s share from the Big Tobacco lawsuit is going to fund their lobbying groups. The article laments that Colorado has instead used the settlement money to help do things like balance the budget instead of funding even more ultra-trendy, youth-oriented, anti-smoking ads:

The single largest chunk of money — $130.7 million — was used to plug holes in the state’s budget over three years, going straight into Colorado’s general fund.

The next largest amount — $130.4 million — went to help fund the Children’s Basic Health Program. The remainder of the tobacco-settlement money has gone to fund dozens of other programs mostly related to health but not directly to smoking.

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Mother warns community about ‘Nazi’ home invasion
Officers told her ‘rights’ were ‘only in the movies’
January 10, 2008
By Bob Unruh
The mother of an 11-year-old boy abducted by SWAT team members and taken to a hospital after he was bruised while horsing around is warning members of her community of the “Nazi” tactics she endured, including a statement from the officers that her “rights” were “only in the movies.”
The case involves Jon Shiflett, who injured himself while trying to grab the handle of a door on a car his sister was driving. He slipped and fell to the pavement, hitting his head. His parents treated him for the injury and rejected paramedics’ demands that they be allowed to take him to a hospital.
Nearly 36 hours later, SWAT team members broke into the family home in western Colorado near New Castle and took Jon to a hospital, where a doctor said the family should keep ice on his bruise, exactly the treatment the family already had been providing.
Tina Shiflett, Jon’s mother, has written a letter to the editor to a local newspaper, the Post Independent, “to awaken, alert and appall any who read it and hear the bells ringing.”
“A fully armed SWAT team broke into our home, slammed my children to the floor face down with their hands behind their backs and shoved a gun in my daughter’s face and handcuffed her…” her letter said.
In a separate letter to WND, she elaborated a little more fully.
During the attack, she wrote, “One (officer) grabbed my daughter Beth (18 years), who also had a gun to her face, slammed her down and kneed her in the back and held her in that position… My sons Adam (14) and Noah (only 7) lay down willingly, yet they were still forced to put their hands behind their backs and were yelled at to keep their heads down.
“My daughter Jeanette was coming out from the back bedroom when she was grabbed, drug down the hallway, across a couch and slammed to the ground,” she said. “The officers then began throwing scissors and screwdrivers across the room (out of our reach, I suppose) and going through our cupboards.
“I asked if I could make a phone call and was told, ‘no.’ My daughter asked if that wasn’t one of our rights. The reply was made, ‘That’s only in the movies,'” she told WND.
It was some unidentified person, possibly a paramedic who had been refused permission to take Jon Shiflett to the hospital as she wanted, who provided information last week that convinced a magistrate to issue a court order that Jon be taken into state custody and examined by a doctor.
He was taken by SWAT team members dispatched by the sheriff to the family’s home at 11 p.m. at night, and they punched a hole in the front door and held guns on other children in the family in order to take Jon.
“The armed men in black masks took my terrified son against his wishes to Grand River Hospital, where he was examined by a doctor and interrogated by Social Services. No evidence was found that he had not been properly taken care of. Upon his return, we were told to keep ice on his head,” Tina Shiflett’s letter to the editor said.
“To the SWAT Team members … how far will you go in ‘just doing your job?’ If you feel no guilt busting into an innocent family’s home, traumatizing young children and stomping the security found therein, will you follow more horrific orders?” she wrote.
“May I remind you that in Nazi Germany, outrageous, monstrous crimes were committed by soldiers ‘just doing their job?’ What will be next? Where will this stop?” she wrote.
“Fathers, mothers, families and countrymen, I challenge you to consider our story and ask yourself the question, ‘If this were my family, what would I do?’ For it very well could be you … next!”
Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario told WND he simply ordered his officers to do exactly what the magistrate demanded.
“I was given a court order by the magistrate to seize the child, and arrange for medical evaluation, and that’s what we did,” he said.
The situation developed at the Apple Tree Mobile Home Park near New Castle last week when Jon Shiflett was horsing around and fell. Tom Shiflett carried his son home and put an ice pack on his head, while examining him to see whether his mental faculties were there. The boy correctly recited Bible verses and spelled words, the parents told WND.
But paramedics were called by a neighbor, and when they arrived, Tom Shiflett let them see his son, but refused their demands that he be taken to a hospital. The paramedics then apparently lobbied the city police, the sheriff’s office, social workers and eventually the magistrate in order to get their way in having Jon taken to a hospital.
Jim Bradford, a court clerk in Garfield County, said it was a juvenile matter and he could not comment on any aspect of the case, and he declined to allow WND to leave a message for Garfield County Magistrate Lain Leoniak, who signed the order.
But participants in a forum at the Rocky Mountain News, which carried reports subsequent to the WND report, seemed to agree with Tina Shiflett.
Wrote ItsJustMe, “Welcome to the coming socialist police state.”
Said “mrNiceGuy,” “Police man shoots man in heart at a distant range, is not charged. Police cover up the events that proceed (sic) the death of someone in their custody, no one is charged. Police enter wrong apartment and shoot an unarmed man thinking a can is a weapon, no charges filed. But a kid bumps his head and his parents deem him to be ok – knock the door in and start cuffing people.”
“I cannot describe the feeling of having your child abducted, taken from your care, not knowing what will happen to him, and if he will ever be returned back into your arms again,” Tina Shiflett wrote in the separate letter to WND. “I record this by my own hand in hopes of awakening anyone who would read it to the injustice of our police depart (sic), social services and court system. But above all to glorify my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, whose reign is supreme over all this earth…”
The letter clarifies that the family did, indeed, cooperate with officers who arrived about 11 p.m. on that night.
“Between 10 and 11 … a sheriff came to the door. My husband met him at the window and he began to question my husband. My husband spoke with him and answered all his questions. The sheriff then said if Tom would just let him speak with Jonathan (our 11 yr. old son) this whole matter (story following) would be closed,” she documented.
“Tom said, ‘You are saying, ‘If I let you speak to Jonathan this whole matter will be closed.?’ Then Tom called for Jonathan to come to the window,” she said.
“As soon as Jonathan was visible to the sheriff, a SWAT team appeared shining lights on Jon’s face and others were bashing at the door with a ramming device. My daughter resisted and pushed against the door to stop them as she didn’t know who they were. I told her to back up and not try to fight them. They then entered our home, held a gun to my daughter’s face and others of them, five or more, rushed into the living room and physically forced my other children to the ground.”
“We were told Jonathan would be taken to a hospital near us for evaluation, and then questioned by the human resources. At this point Jonathan was scared, crying and shaking. We asked if we could accompany him, or follow them to the hospital. We were warned not to try to follow him or come to the hospital or criminal charges would be pressed against us.
“Our son was returned to us at 2:30 a.m. Saturday morning. In all this was not one shred of evidence found that we had done anything wrong or that Jon had not been properly cared for at home,” she said.
“what the?” was KarlSpackler’s comment on a forum at the Denver Post.
And “mamm354” added, “Whoever it was that gave the order to do this should be thrown in jail. Illegal assaults on our privacy is why we need the second ammendment. I don’t see the police being this agressive against illegal aliens but they approach their work with this level of zest against citizens!?!?! Heads should roll for this.”
Lynn Rennick, the social services director in Garfield County, has said her office is required to intervene when it receives a report about “possible mistreatment” of children, but she didn’t comment on any such report in this case, who may have filed it, or what it might have said.
A spokeswoman for WestCare Ambulance, which reportedly responded to the call, also refused to answer any questions about the case, saying all issues were considered patient confidentiality issues.
Ross Talbott, the owner of the Apple Tree Mobile Home Park who rents to the Shifletts, called the SWAT team actions “gross irresponsibility and stupidity.”
“Is this Russia? I don’t know what we’re coming to when they think your kid needs medical help and they send a SWAT team,” he said.

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Colo. casinos report another revenue drop

May 16, 2008

Colorado’s mountain casinos posted declining revenues for the fourth straight month since a smoking ban took effect, the state’s gaming division reported Friday.

April revenues dropped about 12.5 percent to $58.7 million compared with the same month last year. In Black Hawk, where the casinos draw most of Colorado’s gaming business, monthly proceeds fell $11.7 million, to $42.3 million.

Cripple Creek revenues dropped about 13.3 percent to roughly $10.7 million, while Central City casino proceeds fell 16.7 percent to $5.7 million.
Read/

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Smoke suit challenge
Statewide ban may be waste of time, judges say

By April M. Washington
November 16, 2007
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Judges with a federal appeals court said Thursday that a lawsuit challenging the state’s smoking ban as unfair to neighborhood bars and private clubs may be a waste of time because casinos must go smoke free New Year’s Day.
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Joel Spector, an attorney representing bar and private club owners, argued that the law still discriminates because it continues to give the smoking lounges at Denver International Airport and cigar bars a free pass.
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In the year since the smoking ban took effect, numerous bars have suffered financially with about 70 taverns going out of business, Spector said. Meanwhile, casinos were given more than a year to prepare to go smoke-free and buffer their businesses from the financial hit, Spector said.
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“If unequal protections in the Constitution matter, it means government can’t discriminate against one class of people in favor of another class of people,” he said.
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“Certainly, the government shouldn’t be allowed to do that just to protect the economic interest of the state.”
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That argument may be a tough sell with at least one of the judges on the panel.
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“The law clearly indicates you don’t need to regulate an entire problem,” Senior Judge David Ebel said. “Why can’t Colorado say we want to solve a tobacco problem in other places, but allow smoking at DIA?”
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The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in the Coalition for Equal Rights’ appeal seeking to overturn a district judge’s ruling upholding the Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act.
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The three federal court judges hearing the case told Spector that he faces an uphill battle to show why the court should overturn the statewide smoking ban.

The judges said the U.S. Supreme Court routinely has allowed states to carve out rational exemptions in such bans.
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Jason Dunn, an attorney representing the state of Colorado, argued that the legislature since has repealed the casino exemption, making the lawsuit moot.

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Bar owners ask appeals court to overturn state smoking ban

By COLLEEN SLEVIN Associated Press Writer
11/15/2007

DENVER—Bar owners who say Colorado’s smoking ban is pushing them out of business asked a federal appeals court on Thursday to overturn the ban, even though some fear a decision won’t come soon enough to save them.

A coalition of bars, taverns, bowling alleys and bingo halls asked the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to rule the ban is unconstitutional. They argue the ban discriminates against them because the original law exempted casinos, cigar bars and smoking lounges at Denver International Airport.

The state argued it has logical reasons for granting exemptions and lawmakers have since extended the ban to casinos starting Jan. 1, 2008.

Appeals court judges heard oral arguments from both sides Thursday. Rulings in appeals cases usually take weeks or months.

Opponents of the ban filed suit after the law was passed in 2006. A U.S. District Court judge ruled against them last year, and they appealed to the 10th Circuit.

Joel Spector, a lawyer representing the coalition free of charge, told the appeals judges that exempting some businesses made no sense because the stated purpose for the law was to protect people from secondhand smoke.

The judges asked if that argument was still relevant, since lawmakers later expanded the ban to casinos.

Spector said the case is still valid because the state could reverse itself and allow smoking in casinos if it loses a lot of tax revenue.

Judge David Ebel said lawmakers can take incremental steps to fight smoking by exempting some businesses but still serve the purpose of protecting people from smoke.

“There’s less smoking after the statute than there was before the statute,” he said.

Jason Dunn, a former state assistant attorney general representing state government in the case, said Colorado had a right to exclude casinos because of the tax revenue they provide to the state—about $100 million in 2006.

Some of the revenue supports the state’s historical society and the three historic mountain towns where the casinos are located.

He said the airport was excluded because many of the smokers in the lounges are passing through the state and cannot go outside to smoke for security reasons.

Cigar bars were excluded because they were businesses that relied so much tobacco sales, he said.

To be exempt, cigar bars must have gotten at least 5 percent of their revenue from selling tobacco and renting humidors to patrons before the law passed.

Ebel seemed doubtful that revenue was enough reason to exclude casinos.

“You’re saying the almighty dollar trumps the equal protection clause?” Ebel asked, drawing a nod from one of the bar owners watching the hearing.

Ebel wondered whether a tire company could ask the government to put its competitor out of business if it agreed to pay higher taxes.

Dunn said economic reasons are valid as long as they have legitimate underlying state interest. In the tire example, he said, the state wouldn’t have a good reason to allow only one of the tire companies to exist, he said.

After the hearing, James Von Feldt, the owner of Billy’s Tavern in Denver, said he’s already decided to close his bar after New Year’s Eve, but a favorable court ruling could help other bar owners.

Von Feldt said nonsmoking patrons haven’t replaced the smokers, as some ban proponents predicted, and his revenue has dropped about 35 percent since the law passed. He said he had to subsidize the business by refinancing his home and borrowing against his house.

Before leaving, he shook Spector’s hand and invited him to his bar’s final night.

“I’ll buy you a beer,” Von Feldt said.

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Federal appeals court considering state smoking ban
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November 15, 2007

DENVER (AP) — Bar owners who say Colorado’s smoking ban is pushing them out of business asked a federal appeals court on Thursday to overturn the ban, even though some fear a decision won’t come soon enough to save them.

A coalition of bars, taverns, bowling alleys and bingo halls asked the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to rule the ban is unconstitutional. They argue the ban discriminates against them because the original law exempted casinos, cigar bars and smoking lounges at Denver International Airport.

The state argued it has logical reasons for granting exemptions and lawmakers have since extended the ban to casinos starting Jan. 1, 2008.

Appeals court judges heard oral arguments from both sides Thursday. Rulings in appeals cases usually take weeks or months.

Opponents of the ban filed suit after the law was passed in 2006. A U.S. District Court judge ruled against them last year, and they appealed to the 10th Circuit.

Joel Spector, a lawyer representing the coalition free of charge, told the appeals judges that exempting some businesses made no sense because the stated purpose for the law was to protect people from secondhand smoke.

The judges asked if that argument was still relevant, since lawmakers later expanded the ban to casinos.

Spector said the case is still valid because the state could reverse itself and allow smoking in casinos if it loses a lot of tax revenue.

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Legislators of Colorado,
???? It is becoming more widely accepted now that the CO state smoking ban is a train wreck.? The recent study of state liquor excise tax trends further proves that.?

???? Of course the situation will only get worse once the casino ban goes into effect in January.? To date, ALL studies of betting establishments have reported losses when bans take effect.? Donald Trump has even recently chimed in about the negative effects of the Atlantic City smoke ban and has asked for a repeal.?
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???? It is very encouraging to see Trump speak out.
Once the elites have had enough, smoking prohibition will get tossed in the garbage can of history just like alcohol prohibition did.

Bar again faces smoke-ban case
Judge overturns ruling that law is unconstitutional
By Kari Craig, Rocky Mountain News
August 15, 2007
A county court judge’s ruling that declared a statewide smoking ban unconstitutional was overturned Monday by a higher court.
The New Oasis Cabaret in Adams County, cited last year for violating the smoking ban, now has 30 days to appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court, a move that could ease confusion and strife surrounding the Colorado Clean Air Act.
“When you have an honest conflict of opinion at the local levels, at the local courts, regarding specific legislative issues like this law, I think it can be helpful for a higher court like the Supreme Court or Court of Appeals to provide some clarity to the local courts,” said Mike Goodbee, assistant district attorney in Adams County. “Strictly from an efficiency standpoint, it might make sense to get a final determination from the Colorado Supreme Court, which would bind all state courts in Colorado.”
“The question is resolved, at this point in time, for county courts in Broomfield and Adams counties.”
Enacted in July 2006, the legislation banned smoking in most workplaces, except for casinos, airport smoking lounges and cigar or tobacco bars. Oasis, 1300 W. 62nd Ave., in unincorporated Adams County, was ticketed in December for violating the ban by allowing smoking inside the topless club and bar.
A county court judge dismissed the Oasis Cabaret’s summons in April after Oasis argued that the law is unconstitutional because it unfairly exempts casinos and cigar bars, according to court documents.
Adams County Judge Robert Doyle ruled that the law is unconstitutional because, while it makes exceptions for “tobacco bars,” it doesn’t give taverns a way to establish that they meet that standard.
Doyle also said that the law violates the 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection, because he said there is no rational reason to allow smoking in casinos but not in bars.
District Court Judge Chris Melonakis disagreed.
“Permitting smoking in establishments that rely upon tobacco sales as a . . . basis of income while precluding smoking in other establishments that derive income from other activities . . . is not an irrational classification,” he wrote in Monday’s ruling. “The public interest in protecting the health of non-smoking patrons from harm in the latter establishments is a legitimate exercise of the state’s police powers.”
Melonakis also said that casinos were rightfully exempted from the ban “because many of the towns in which casinos are located are dependent on the revenues casinos generate . . . and because Colorado derives direct economic benefit from its licensed casinos,” among another reasons.
Come New Year’s Day, the smoking ban will extend to gambling parlors in Black Hawk, Central City and Cripple Creek. The legislature yanked their exemption last spring.
The smoking ban ran into obstacles when Orio’s Roadhouse in Durango won the right to exemption by challenging the definition of “cigar bar” and asserting that because Orio’s drew 5 percent of its total revenue – or more than $50,000 – from tobacco sales, it should qualify for the cigar-bar exemption.
craigk@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5618

Read More:? CO State Update Page 4