[chance33_98]

Maybe Montana will start a trend...

[Libertarianize the GOP]

.

[Treebeard]

Oklahoma's non smoking laws took effect on Friday, and we went out to eat twice over the holiday. It was really interesting to watch the developing dynamic. We were immediately seated in the bar and got to watch all the "regulars" come in, some with cigarette already out of the pack, told that Red Lobster was total non-smoking. Some unkind exchanges did occur.

The way the law is written, if an establishment has a smoking section, it almost has to be a separate building, where there is NO chance of smoke entering an area where it's not supposed to be. Restaurants can go total NON, total smoking, or "provisional non-smoking" which means they have to jump thru a lot of hoops in keeping smokers and their smoke absolutely isolated from the rest.

[SheLion]

NO KIDDING! WOW, GREAT NEWS!!

[JoeSixPack1]

......., but it gained 61% of the vote.

Who counted the votes and who voted?

[metesky]

The lawsuit, which opponents had promised they would file, says the city has no authority to adopt such an ordinance, and that it violates property rights and is causing economic hardship. It names the city and the Lewis and Clark County Board of Health and the city-county health department.

This is a loser right from the start. Doesn't the smoker's side have any intelligent lawyers?

The precedent has been set and courts in all the other states where it has been fought this way have said the cities have a perfect right to regulate public health, that public health regulations do not infringe property rights and they could care less about the owners economic hardship in the face of a looming public health crisis.

This battle has to be fought with facts and science and the facts are that SHS harms nobody.

Isn't there one God damned lawyer out there with the brains and the intestinal fortitude to fight and win this on the facts or are all the lawyers just flippin' interested in getting on the damn gravy train?