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.
prediction: He will get fat again and I am going to laugh and laugh...
Voters approved this. Dumb.
I hope you feel it is also “a good thing” when “we the people” vote to regulate what you eat, drink, drive, wear, activities you may engage in or live as well.
Can you honestly say that initiatives for smoking bans receive fair and balanced representation for both sides of the issue?
They sure didn’t here in Washington State. Of course, to advertise opposition to a smoking ban can be construed as advertising for smoking and that is illegal.
Bolsheviks rejoice, America is rapidly becoming the Union of Socialist States of America with sheeple willing bringing it on.
Of course one can argue, "that's what the voters wanted", but I'm not convinced.
Over and over one can hear in the media "the American people believe - blah, blah; the American people want,- blah blah" when in fact there is no evidence whatsoever that is what the majority believe, particularly when presented intelligent analysis and options.
In the case of voted issues the option(s)presented are routinely simplistic and arrogant.
I don't know how the Nevada referendum was worded, but you can be sure there were infinitely many other options which would allow those private businesses which embraced smoking to continue to do so, while backing up those who prohibited it. This is the ignorant reactionary status of Americans now, and indeed proves that it IS all about control of such. The LEFT is constituted of those who allow themselves to be controlled, along with those who relish the control.
Another example as mentioned on another thread is healthcare. So it's soooo prohibitivly expensive government "must" take it over, when in fact there are many free market scenarios for drastically cutting the costs.
Politicians, like Hollywood, only care about self aggrandizement through simplistic emotionalism, not about solving problems. And the citizens who buy it are egomanaically emotional, they can only exist within their own ego's. Thus the definition of the LEFT, and stupidity.
Years ago Communism was fully accepted as the institution of the ignorant.
I’ve noticed the signs popping up in a lot of storefronts in Ohio. If you smoke to close to the doors, it gives a telephone number for others to rat you out to the smoking nazi police squads.
I’m sorry, but I’ve had a hankerin to do this ever since I saw your screen name:
Popocatapetl is not in mexico, maybe in malaga malaga malaga.
Here is that sign for all to see how Ohioans treat one another...
http://www.odh.ohio.gov/ASSETS/9FF7EB2100CC44B48278D44DFC632E01/Color4x6.pdf
“It is happening here in the Los Angeles area of Calabasas.”
I read about this in the L A Times. Even in Malibu, you can smoke :-) I’m surprised at Calabasas though, as I have several friends that live there, and it seemed fairly conservative to me.
Puff Patrol. That’s got to be about the most embarrasing job a human being could take. Well, maybe a step up from the Clean Butt Patrol.
“I am stuck getting housing permits for illegal aliens wanting to increase the number of families they can move onto their property.”
YOU do NOT?
Harassing, punishing, and overtaxing smokers by the local governments have gone too far.
I’d like to see what these Nazi bureaucrats would do, if all the smokers would stop buying cigarettes for at least 6-8 months, nationwide? Who will they target next for the missing tax money they counted for, and already allocated for some stupid spending? I bet smokers would gain a lot of allies from the next targeted segment of the population. The ‘feel gooders’ and control freaks will not stop until people drove them into the wall.
Some info for smokers:
http://www.smokinglobby.com/
http://www.smokersclubinc.com/
I'm a former smoker and I detest the habit, but anyone who would do this for a living is lower than a snake belly.
Are we really the "land of the free" anymore?
Physical violence because of a ticket? Uh, not a good idea.
"Physical violence because of a ticket?"
no worries...most smokers would be gasping for breath if they tried anything beyond lifting a burning stick to their lips....
You speak in jest but I think you're on to something. We need someone to ensure that all restaurant employees wash their hands before returning to work. Perhaps a camera could do the job.
Just so they promote perversion and promiscuity, after all the is important to promote, especially to kids.
sarcasm off/
One of the biggest problems, and there are a lot of em, that I see is the authroization of health agencies to perform law enforcement duties. That is scary!!!!
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