Posted on 05/03/2010 11:24:37 AM PDT by markomalley
When government power grows, businesses have no choice but to hire lobbyists. Some entrepreneurs near Detroit are learning this the hard way:
Michigan’s smoking ban has taken effect. The law bans establishments that offer hookah smoking from selling any food or beverages — a move that owners say would effectively drive out hookah cafés.
What galls the owners — most of them Arab American — is that the state has given exemptions for cigar bars and Detroit casinos to allow smoking along with eating and drinking. To them, the issue is tinged with religious and ethnic bias.
“It’s a double standard,” Akram Allos, owner of Sinbad Café in Dearborn, said while puffing on a mint-flavored hookah. “Just because we didn’t have a lobbyist, why should we have to suffer?”
Welcome to the Real World.
I thought bongs were illegal.
If the facts are as stated, it seems like all they need is a halfway decent lawyer.
I guess the rulers of Michigan are determined to drive absolutely all business out of the state.
Go back to the Middle East....the sooner the better.
I thought bongs were illegal.
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Not here in Maryland. They are marketed as tobacco delivery systems.
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