Posted on 09/01/2007 4:23:10 PM PDT by GOP_Lady
Health district takes the wrong enforcement approach So this 105-pound Southern Nevada Health District clerk walks into a bar and tells a tired, 265-pound, tattooed construction worker, 'You can't smoke in here. I'm citing you. That'll cost you $100 ...' "
It's not a joke. The Southern Nevada Health District is preparing to turn office staff into the Puff Patrol, a crack law enforcement squad charged with sniffing out violators of the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act. The new law, approved by voters in November, prohibits smoking inside most businesses, including bars that serve food.
Because a Clark County district judge in December struck down the law's criminal penalties, the health district is the act's sole enforcing agency. Right now, the district does little beyond taking complaints from customers about businesses that unlawfully allow smoking on their premises, then dispatching inspectors accordingly.
But the district's lawyers are dotting the I's and crossing the T's on a plan to cite individual smokers, which would assess a $100 fine and put citizens before a justice of the peace if they want to contest the ticket.
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Which takes us back to our opening line.
"We are not peace officers, yet we're in a bar and people are drinking," said health district attorney Stephen Minagil. "The health district staff writing these citations are scientists. They are environmental health specialists who are not armed. They don't have peace officer training."
Without intending to do so, Mr. Minagil points out exactly why the health district has no business pursuing such a policy. If an individual smoker refuses to provide his identification, the health district officer's only recourse is to call police for assistance. And local cops don't have the manpower to uphold traffic laws in the valley, let alone respond to some bureaucrat's complaint that the guy two tables down is lighting up and won't put his cigarette out.
In fact, Las Vegas police brass have made it abundantly clear that they have no intention of upholding the Clean Indoor Air Act. They'll provide backup to health district ticket writers only if the confrontation, initiated by the government employee, precipitates assault or battery -- or worse.
In April 2003, two weeks after New York City's own anti-smoking ordinance went into effect, a bouncer at a Manhattan bar was stabbed to death after he asked two patrons to extinguish their cigarettes.
Workers' personal safety concerns will inevitably lead to another problem for the health district: selective enforcement.
Who is the aforementioned 105-pound "scientist" more likely to ticket, the 65-year-old woman with the oxygen tank or the beefy, 32-year-old ironworker? And where and when, exactly, will the Puff Patrol take to the streets? Will they hit upscale taverns in Summerlin or Green Valley during Thursday lunch, or biker bars on Boulder Highway at 2 a.m. Saturday?
If health district workers plan to continue working their convenient day shifts, the answers are easy -- and unconstitutional.
Already, the health district has shown a deficiency of common sense in upholding the Clean Indoor Air Act.
Although the operators of Irene's Lounge, at 5480 W. Spring Mountain Road, constructed a wall separating its nonsmoking dining area from the bar to keep their kitchen open and comply with the law, inspectors dinged lounge employees for taking food orders in the bar and serving meals to bar patrons. Mr. Minagil won't drop the health district's civil lawsuit against Irene's Lounge until he's satisfied that employees are forcing bar patrons to enter the dining area, order their food, then bring it back to the bar themselves.
Now that's a joke. The Clean Indoor Air Act was pitched to voters primarily as protection for "the children." But children aren't allowed in bars. What difference does it make if workers serve food in walled-off smoking areas where children aren't present? This kind of enforcement isn't about "the children," nor is it about preventing exposure to secondhand smoke. This is vindictive prohibition, plain and simple.
Considering how reliant local and state governments are on jacked-up cigarette taxes, that's bad public policy.
So how should the Southern Nevada health district fairly uphold a voter-approved statute? It's simple. Focus on the voters' intent and concentrate their enforcement efforts on places where "the children" could be exposed to secondhand smoke. Investigate citizen complaints and cite businesses only if aggrieved parties can be identified and demonstrate harm.
Citing individual smokers is a terrible idea that will further clog overburdened courts, cost government more than it can recover in fines and provoke citizen backlash. The Southern Nevada Health District should put a match to this policy -- somewhere smoke is allowed, of course.
Ping!
My apologies for the garbage in the middle of the article.
Remember when we used to live in America, land of the free?
Well we can’t ask if you are illegal but we sure can stop your smoking.
I hope people beat the crap out of these nazis.
I have a real problem with the gov. going into private business telling them they can’t do something that is a legal activity. Dining out or going on a pub crawl is a choice made and if you don’t like smoking than find another place to hang out.
My post from earlier today: “I just came back from the heart of Public Square in Cleveland, Ohio, the Terminal Tower (walked across the street to get some lunch in there). They have small patios OUTSIDE. I was on the patio with THREE ARMY MEN in uniform and we were having a cigarette. They sent a Cleveland Police Officer after us to get us off the patio. AND I’M NOT LYING! Welcome to the great fascist state of Ohio. I asked the police officer if this is how he wanted to treat our soldiers and also told him to go harass some shoplifters.”
I have mixed feelings about the law, but if you’re gonna have the law, it should be enforced.
But it would be cheaper to cite the owner for failing to prevent smoking.
“This is vindictive prohibition, plain and simple.”
That says it all- It never has been about health but about control.
I always think of Nevada as a good old freedom loving western state but it’s getting to be like my state,Massachusetts,and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
Good for you...that policeman should be ashamed.
EDITORIAL: Ticketing smokers
MY EDITORIAL: Punching anti-smoking Nazi bigots.
FWIW, I don’t smoke.
And all these people who think Hillary is the great savior are oblivious to the fact that she and most Dems (and sad to say a fair number of Republicans) want government to control more of our lives. After she is in the White House we’ll see how the people who voted for her like it when federal bureaucrats tell us what we can and can’t eat, when and how often we can go to the doctor, etc. Plus if smoking laws get more stringent, even people who do not smoke will end up being affected.
FYI ... Unfortunately, Mike Huckabee likes it also — NATION WIDE:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1889134/posts
That’s right — give all the exemptions to the casinos and harass the small pub/restaurant owner!
From the size of Hillary’s butt I we can be assured that dietary restrictions will be last on her adjenda.
Typical leftist tyranny.
Mike will NEVER get my vote——he lost some weight and feels so smug and satisfied he’s going to tell the rest of us how to “get healthy”.
Wonder what they'd do if you just shook your head and answered in something resembling spanish?
Wonder what they'd do if you whipped out a prayer rug and started yelling "profiling"?
Wonder what they'd do if a couple hundred people lit up each night for three or four days in a row, got busted, and demanded a hearing?
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