[Mears]

Making Mass non-smoking will not level the playing field for those establishments that are on the NH,RI,and VT border.CT also,but I think it has a ban.

Most of Southeastern and Central Mass is less than an hour away from Providence,a great restaurant city. A statewide ban in Mass will create a mess because Mass is geographically a small state and very easy to leave for an evening out.

[maryz]

Making Mass non-smoking will not level the playing field for those establishments that are on the NH,RI,and VT border.CT also,but I think it has a ban.

Ah, you underestimate the MA legislature -- they may yet come up with something. I believe the current law on Sunday liquor sales is that they're legal in towns within 10 miles of the NH border. (That, of course, just moves the location of the most negatively affected 10 miles south.) Or they could try a variant of when they had MA state police lurking at the boarder to intimidate people driving into NH to buy liquor (on Sunday or otherwise) or just to avoid the MA sales tax. (There was a great hue and cry over that one, and they stopped.)