February 2009

The ClusterF*** smoking ban legislation

l3wis February 19, 2009 3Comments

Cigars are safe to smoke, especially if you are a snobby Republican business owner who thinks he answers to no one. 

As I suspected every whiny butt lobbyist got a hold of the smoking ban legislation and took a monster axe to it and left us with nothing;

PIERRE – A legislative committee says smoking should be banned in South Dakota bars, video lottery casinos and restaurants that serve liquor.

 

 

The committee amended the bill to exclude motel rooms, businesses that sell mainly tobacco products and Deadwood gambling halls from the ban.

Though the Senate’s version failed, it was the best version. My take is if it is not a total ban it is not worth doing. Hopefully the Senate votes it down again so we can put a bill with teeth on the ballot. I’m okay with the motel room exclusion (impossible to police) but the gaming halls and cigar lounges should have been included. One cigar lounge owner thinks there is a difference in cigars and cigarettes, though they are both rolled tobbacco and smoked;

“I’ve always contended the cigar lounges should be an exemption,” Kant said while driving back from Pierre on Wednesday night. “With the exemption we have to give up the cigarette smoking, too. … The way that the amendment is written, it’s very strict” about what cigar lounges can do as well.

“I have contended that because I am a cigar lounge owner. Just drive by my business in the summer and look at all the young people sitting on my patio drinking miller lite taps and smoking cigarettes, uh, I mean, cigars.”

If the exemption and ban do go into affect, I will personally go into his bar everynight and call the police if someone is smoking a cigarette and not a cigar. Kant has a track record of ignoring laws. If he isn’t illegally blocking parking spots and the sidewalk, playing music past curfew or selling drinks in plastic cups he is finding some other way to skirt the law.