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BURLINGTON, Vt. --The Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Hyde Park is defying a 6-month-old state law and will allow members to smoke in a private section of the club.Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts VFW Post 7779 Commander Bruce Martin, a nonsmoker, said he was one of those who voted to allow smoking. The issue was more than cigarettes."These people are sick of the state taking away our private rights," he said.Immediately after club members voted 7-4 Tuesday night to bring back smoking a number of members lit up.VFW auxiliary member Robin Ferris filed a...

Help Stop The Attack On Your Rights!!!The City of Calabasas in an over whelming attempt to stamp out what they feel is an unwanted part of their community has passed a law banning smoking from public places. Not only banning but making it a misdemeanor punishable by up to $1000 fine and/or six months in jail. That is not all if you witness a smoker in the act and don't report them you are guilty of aiding and abiding which holds the same punishment regardless of how you feel about smoking.Calabasas using its own unique judgment has inacted a law...

How would you feel about smoke-free restaurants? If some state lawmakers have it their way, the "no smoking" sign will be posted in every section of your favorite diner.If you enjoy smoking after a meal, like Melody Boutwell, you may have to light up outside. “I do smoke, but I don't like smoking around children. So I typically, even in a restaurant, go outside to smoke,” Boutwell said. A proposed bill would ban smoking in restaurants and possibly public buildings. “The debate has increased over the years, and at this point, it is the most intense I've seen it...

The air pollution scare industry is at it again -- in a very timely manner to help the Environmental Protection Agency impose more dubious regulations on us. “When the air is filled with increased levels of soot and other tiny particles, more people end up in the hospital with heart and lung problems, according to the largest study yet on the health effects of such pollutants,” reported the Chicago Sun-Times on March 8. Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the study reports that “short-term exposure to [fine particulate air pollution or soot] increases the risk for...

A statewide indoor smoking ban that exempts casinos is unfair and should never have been signed into law.When they approved an indoor smoking ban for New Jersey in January, lawmakers all but admitted a double standard was being set by allowing Atlantic City's casinos to continue allowing smoking. Now, a coalition of bars, restaurants and bowling alleys is rightly challenging the New Jersey Smoke-Free Air Act, set to go into effect April 15, asking a federal court to strike it down as unconstitutional. Hopefully, their challenge will lead to the law being scrapped. It was shockingly hypocritical for state lawmakers,...

The rest of the story is quite simple. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids is not the only national anti-smoking advocacy organization that works just on tobacco issues.  According to a prominent anti-smoking researcher and advocate, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids - a national anti-smoking advocacy organization - has sent out a communication to its constituents claiming to be the only national purely anti-smoking organization. The communication reportedly stated: "As the only national advocacy organization that works just on tobacco issues, it's critical that we team up with other organizations and individuals to be successful." [emphasis mine] The Rest of the...

Democracy is alive and well in Columbia.That has to be the conclusion after a couple of hundred people packed the city council chambers Tuesday night to debate a Board of Health proposal that would ban smoking in bars and restaurants in the city. To some, the question of a ban on smoking isn’t a matter of whether but when. The politically correct bandwagon that says secondhand smoke is the root of all evil is charging through cities, states and nations all around the globe. Why should Columbia be any different? That’s how things seemed a couple of years ago when...

Poll results released late Tuesday show most Ohioans favor a smoking ban that exempts bars, bowling alleys, private clubs and restaurants that reserve separate rooms for smoking. The Ohio Licensed Beverage Association polled 600 voters and found Ohioans would reject a total smoking ban by a 52 percent to 46 percent margin. But a majority of those polled support a modified ban, and 62 percent believe business owners should be allowed to determine their own smoking policies. Locally, the city of Centerville implemented a smoking ban that went into effect last spring. Except for a handful of bars, restaurants...

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg yesterday announced a settlement with an online cigarette vendor that will allow the city to pursue residents for up to $33 million in unpaid excise taxes.It was the largest such settlement, officials said, since the city sued dozens of companies and individuals in 2003 for illegally selling cigarettes over the Internet to city residents. A 2000 state law banned direct sales of cigarettes over the Internet and by telephone or mail. Tobacco companies challenged the ban, but a federal appellate court upheld it in February 2003. The state began enforcing the law that June. Officials...

MADISON — A lawmaker pushing a statewide smoking ban that would pre-empt local rules by allowing people to light up in bars and certain restaurants says time is running out for action. While he doesn't consider the bill dead, Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said he doubts it will get passed this year. "I've been around the building long enough to know that, until session is over, it's not over," Fitzgerald said late last week. "I will say this, the votes were not there to bring it to the floor this past fall and it still remains (at the committee...

Where's there's smoke, there's a lawsuit. A coalition of bars, restaurants and bowling alley operators filed a federal lawsuit in Trenton today to strike down New Jersey's indoor smoking ban as unconstitutional. The group is angry that the law excludes Atlantic City casinos, The Smoke-Free Air Act bans smoking in restaurants, bars, private office buildings and other indoor places but permits it on the casino floors. Sponsors and supporters said the casino exemption was needed to keep the casinos competitive with those in other states where smoking is allowed. Attorney Robert Gluck says the group would be satisfied if...

You probably won't get eighty-sixed for smoking cigarettes at Stella's Sand Trap. But you might be asked to leave if you ask too many nosy questions about smoking at the east Bakersfield tavern.It was a typical weeknight at Stella's. The beer and conversation were flowing and the hard, wooden "crack" of cue balls punctuated the air as pool players shot eight ball at the tavern's lighted tables.Cigarette smoke swirled thick and luxuriously toxic above the bar -- and for a moment, it seemed like the era of Merle Haggard's "swinging doors, a jukebox and a barstool" was back.The message was...

ST. PAUL — Several Iron Range lawmakers have snuffed out any talk of a possible statewide smoking ban. They believe it’s a local control issue.St. Louis County commissioners earlier this week deferred action on a possible countywide smoking ban and passed a resolution urging the Legislature deal with the issueCurrently the smoking ban bill is still “alive” in the Senate, but was put to rest in the House last year, and supporters of the legislation in the House will have to resurrect the measure again.Rep. Tom Rukavinia, DFL-Virginia, who described himself as a “libertarian” on this issue, was adamantly...

In the golfing galaxy, the arrival of March means the Masters is near. The first shot soars into the air at Augusta National five weeks from today, bringing the annual avalanche of sights and sounds: Amen Corner, the azaleas, the pine trees ... Jack and Arnie ripping the place? First, some context: Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer did not engage in a foot-stomping, steam-spewing tirade. Nicklaus and Palmer sat calmly in oversized leather chairs at a recent Golf Digest event and criticized the course changes made by Augusta National Chairman Hootie Johnson. This is not standard behavior for former Masters...

High up on my list of annoyances are references to the United States as a democracy and the suggestion that Iraq should become a democracy. The word "democracy" appears in neither of our founding documents – the Declaration of Independence nor the U.S. Constitution. Our nation's founders had disdain for democracy and majority rule. James Madison, in Federalist Paper No. 10, said in a pure democracy, "there is nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual." During the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Edmund Randolph said that "in tracing these evils to their origin every man...

The senator who introduced legislation to prohibit smoking in most public, indoor spaces in Virginia requested another hearing for the bill yesterday after its defeat in a House subcommittee. But the two House of Delegates members who could most easily revive the measure said they will not do so. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Brandon Bell, R-Roanoke County, would have prohibited smoking in restaurants and other indoor places accessible to the public with few exceptions. It passed the Senate 21-18 but was unanimously rejected by a six-member House General Laws subcommittee Thursday night. Under rules adopted by the House...

A WOMAN in a wheelchair must go outside into the cold weather for a cigarette even though she is 93 - because smoking is banned in her nursing home. Gladys Gornall, known as Chris, of the Norwood Lodge Nursing Home in Nore Road, Portishead, took up smoking 10 years ago after her husband died. Daughter Joan Mock, 68, says it is the only thing she has left that keeps her happy. And she says she fears her mother is more likely to die from exposure to cold winter weather than from smoking. Mrs Mock said: "She's 93, she's in...

New Hampshire is one step closer to a statewide ban on smoking in restaurants and bars. The House Commerce Committee voted Wednesday to recommend the full House approve a ban. Current state law allows smoking in restaurants with fewer than 50 seats. Larger restaurants must have ventilation systems and a segregated non-smoking area. But supporters of the ban say that does not protect workers. If approved, New Hampshire would be the 12th state to institute a statewide ban. All the other five New England states have a statewide smoking ban.

Flirtations with smoking bans in Virginia and Maryland came to abrupt ends yesterday, as legislative panels in each state rejected bills that would have made restaurants and virtually all other public places smoke-free. In Virginia, a House of Delegates subcommittee unanimously rejected a bill that had won Senate approval despite the state's long-standing ties to the tobacco industry. In Maryland, a House committee chaired by a Baltimore delegate whose downtown district is dotted with bars and taverns turned back a similar proposal by a narrow margin. Health groups -- including the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association and...

Companies are charging smokers more money for health insurance CINCINNATI — Smokers already feeling pressure from increasing cigarette costs and workplace smoking bans are now feeling squeezed from another direction — health insurance premiums. A growing number of employers — private and public — are charging employees who use tobacco more money for their health insurance coverage. Employers hope that the higher charges will motivate more employees to stop smoking, resulting in improved health and lower health care costs for the companies and their workers. "With smokers costing companies about 25 percent more than nonsmokers in the area of health...