Posted on 04/03/2004 3:15:25 PM PST by writer33
BOISE _ Starting July 1, there will be no more smoking allowed in Idaho restaurants.
Kempthorne signed SB 1283 into law, banning smoking in restaurants and other public places, but making exceptions for bars and bowling alleys. The bill passed both houses of the state Legislature after much debate. It allows cities and counties to pass stricter laws, if they choose.
The signing came on the final day to act on bills from this year's legislative session. The governor, for the first time this year, brought out his veto stamp, nixing five bills. He also signed the last 18 bills into law, including measures to ban lawsuits against restaurants for making people fat, and designating the peregrine falcon as the state raptor.
The smoking bill was controversial, with many North Idaho lawmakers contending it could hamper the area's combination restaurant-bars.
In his signing message, the governor said, "I do not believe that there is an absolute personal right to smoke at any time and in any public place. Some fundamental rights -- free speech for example -- have some limitations on the time, place and manner of their exercise."
The bill, he said, "fashioned a carefully balanced approach to the needs of businesses, which have traditionally catered to smokers, and the need for members of the non-smoking public to avoid problems associated with second-hand smoke."
To accommodate restaurant-bar combinations, the bill's authors allowed restaurants that serve alcohol to essentially declare themselves bars after a certain hour or on certain days, and allow smoking -- provided that they then exclude anyone under age 21.
Here are the other bills the governor took action on Friday:
VETOED:
•HB 544a, a measure to change the process by which Idaho determines "total maximum daily loads" of pollutants for waterways, by providing more authority to watershed advisory groups. Kempthorne called the changes potentially costly and unworkable.
•SB 1269a, regarding intracity light rail systems. The governor said the bill was not needed, as local governments already can set up such systems.
•HB 816a, which would have required a special brand on all livestock entering Idaho from Canada. New federal regulations will address the issue, Kempthorne said.
•HB 807, revising membership on the Idaho Beef Council. The measure sought to deal with a possible federal funding loss that may or may not occur, and was premature, he said.
•HB 760a and 761a, creating new tax credits for alternative energy generation.
SIGNED INTO LAW:
•HB 590a, the "Commonsense Consumption Act," forbidding obesity lawsuits against food sellers.
•HB 631a, requiring community colleges to cooperate with local governments.
•HB 646, clarifying that the term "health institution" includes both private and public, non-profit and for-profit hospitals or facilities.
•HB 693a, revising requirements for making anatomical gifts, to inform givers that for-profit entities may retrieve tissues or parts.
•HB 712, designating the peregrine falcon as the state raptor.
•HB 770, clarifying the authority of the Idaho Athletic Commission over professional boxing, wrestling and similar events.
•HB 801, appropriating $9,460,800 to the Office of the State Board of Education for fiscal year 2005.
•HB 828, revising tax rates on surplus lines of insurance.
•HB 847, appropriating an additional $190,100 to the Superintendent of Public Instruction/State Department of Education for fiscal year 2005.
•SB 1317a, clarifying jurisdiction of licensed emergency medical service agencies.
•SB 1347, authorizing advance payments to charter schools from state pupil transportation funds.
•SB 1361, requiring copies of nonprofit bylaws and articles of incorporation when submitting a petition for a charter school.
•SB 1363, requiring charter school teachers to be certified and have standard contracts.
•SB 1389, setting licensing and educational requirements for residential mortgage loan originators.
•SB 1441, revising public records laws relating to Idaho Industrial Commission worker's compensation records, to make them more open.
•SB 1445, appropriating $1.05billion to the Department of Health and Welfare for Medical Assistance Services for fiscal year 2005.
•HB 728, allowing a waiver in certain circumstances from technology proficiency requirements for teachers.
I'm not one of them.
How can this be? Isn't Idaho full of conservatives?
I suggest everyone flee Idaho while you still can, and go to???? Uh.....Go to.........????
They bars and bowling alleys will be next year, when they attempt to legalize illegal aliens.....
According to the SCOTUS in LLOYD CORP. v. TANNER, 407 U.S. 551 (1972) involving rights associated with property ownership: “Held: There has been no dedication of petitioner's privately owned and operated shopping center to public use so as to entitle respondents to exercise First Amendment rights therein that are unrelated to the center's operations; and petitioner's property did not lose its private character and its right to protection under the Fourteenth Amendment merely because the public is generally invited to use it for the purpose of doing business with petitioner's tenants.”
How big is that group? Have any idea?
No "pun" intended, right? hehe!
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