Free Republic

“Dangerous combination,” The Akron Beacon Journal editorial headline reads. “A lame-duck maneuver to allow guns in bars,” the subhead clarifies. Ohio Rep. Danny Bubp is trying to get enough signatures on discharge petitions to force two gun bills passed earlier in the Senate to the House floor for a vote. Oxymoronically, the "Authorized Journalists," who ordinarily present themselves as champions of democracy, along with House Democrats, don’t want a vote to happen: In the House, Armond Budish, the Democratic speaker, wisely has taken a firm stand against the bills. The Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police, the Fraternal Order of...

HOUSTON – As in most states, a bar owner can be held liable if a drunken patron injures someone else. But the I-Team discovered how the big liquor lobby pushed through a legal loophole that gets bars around the law, and leaves some Texas families in anguish. Matthew Garcia was bright and talented, and at 21, too young to die, his family said. "He would sit at the piano for hours and play," recalled Laurri Garcia of her son’s affection for music. “Life is horrible without Matthew, I miss him incredibly." But amid his parents' pain, there’s something else....

This is probably the worst Friday night of my life - and that's saying something. I'm sat on a high stool at a small table, plasma screens are oozing sports programmes around my head and there is a grubby plastic menu in front of me that is littered with pictures of fast food. Not a green vegetable in sight, unless you count a deep fried chilli, coated in batter. There is the thump, thump, thump of awful music in the background, competing with the braying of table upon table of men: young men, old men, students, office workers, football supporters......

RICHMOND, VA (WWBT) - It has now been just about two weeks since a new Virginia law went into effect allowing concealed weapons in bars and restaurants. Now, both sides of the issue are already weighing in on its impact. Today we get the opinions of people directly connected to the new law. Phillip Van Cleave is the President of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a group that fought to get the law passed.

If you're looking to buy a lottery ticket this weekend in Michigan there are some bars that won't be selling them. That's because they're staging a boycott against the state over the new smoking laws they say is hurting their business, according to our reporting partners at WSJM, Benton Harbor, Mi. An internet-born boycott has bar owners opposed to the smoking ban, taking part in the boycott. Those bars will not offer lotto games from 11a.m. Saturday to 2 a.m. Sunday. One state official estimated the boycott could involve hundreds of bars, especially those along the Indiana border fighting to...

Why not?The arguments presented in favor of the law that now bans smoking in all bars and restaurants in Va. was that smoking poses a serious health danger to the public.Separate designated non-smoking areas wasn't sufficient the proponents argued, because second-hand smoke also poses a danger. As it stands now, the only bars or restaurants in Va. that can legally accommodate patrons who wish to smoke are those that have totally closed-off, separate areas, with there own ventilation system. Or, if they are private and not open to the general public. Can the case be made that the consumption of alcoholic beverages also poses a serious health danger to...

Thirsty residents of one of Australia's hottest towns face a 400-mile round trip to get a beer after they drank their local pub dry. Last weekend, The Ironclad Hotel, the only pub in Marble Bar, Western Australia, closed its doors for good. The town, with a population of just 300, is barely a dot on the map of the vast Pilbara region, and has no dedicated off-licence. Supermarkets in Australia are not allowed to sell liquor. Temperatures in the town regularly top 113F and the average maximum temperature exceeds normal human body temperature for six months of the year. So...

Gov. Phil Bredesen for the second year in a row has vetoed a bill to allow Tennessee handgun permit holders to bring their weapons into bars and restaurants that serve alcohol.

Not since the Salem witchcraft trials has there been a worse disgrace in the annals of Massachusetts jurisprudence: the railroading of an innocent Malden family during the legally sanctioned insanity known as the Fells Acres child-abuse case. Probably the apogee of the mass hysteria that gripped the U.S. beginning about 1995, the Amirault case continues to resonate – in part thanks to Martha Coakley’s inexplicable disinterest in seeing that justice was done. You can read up on the case here and here. Be sure to steel yourself. And then ask yourself: how could any rational human being have possibly believed...

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As Montana bars dealt with their first smoke-free weekend since the state’s indoor smoking ban went into effect, ingenuity ruled. In Missoula, according to a great piece by Michael Moore in the Missoulian, the Rhino Bar gave smokers their very own place to light up: a Butt Hutt, created by Dave Golden of Well Done Welding and Jim Bell, a general contractor. Moore describes the hut as a 4-by-8-foot “metal smoking dugout” in the alley behind the Rhino in Missoula. The no-smoking laws spark the type of debate that never seems to get extinguished. Pro-smokers argue that the bans hurt...

Poll: If Jesus were on earth today in bodily form, would he frequent bars and pubs to befriend "sinners"? A Daily Poll

"Alcohol encourages dangerous behavior" admits restaurant owner. And knowing how these owners feel about their duty to their communities, I have no doubt that they will be glad to support legislation banning alcohol sales in restaurants. After all, this is not the “Wild West”. We do not need saloons on every corner.

A bar in Spain is encouraging its customers to insult its staff by offering free drinks to the funniest abusers. The owner of the bar says he's introduced the idea as a way for his customers to release their frustrations of every day life. Customers who belt out the most original or funny abuse will be rewarded with free drinks.

In bright yellow capital letters, the sign on the karaoke bar in downtown Peoria was clear: "WE ARE NOT A GAY BAR!!" The local gay community got the message. And it apparently was just the rallying cry it needed. In a flurry of forwarded Facebook, MySpace and text messages, a coalition quickly mobilized and dozens of gay rights supporters lined up last weekend outside The Elbo Room to express their outrage. The sign, they said, might as well have read, "Gays are not welcome here." "The sign was basically a sign of intolerance, and we're not going to stand for...

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A proposed ban on smoking in most public places will be debated Monday in the Senate, and the chamber's top two leaders said Friday that the bill's chances for passage are good. "If there are no substantive amendments, I would assume it would pass," said Senate President Steve Morris, a Hugoton Republican. Senate Vice President John Vratil agreed, but cautioned that opponents will try to load it up with amendments.

"It's funny what a wonderful gentility you get in the bar of a big hotel," Ernest Hemingway has Jake Barnes say to Brett Ashley in "The Sun Also Rises." They are sipping nice icy Martinis at the bar of the Palace Hotel in Madrid and marveling at the elegant professionalism of bartenders. "Barmen and jockeys are the only people who are polite any more," Brett says, and Jake agrees: "No matter how vulgar a hotel is, the bar is always nice." If only that were still true. Once upon a time, hotel bars set the standard for sophisticated drinking, with...

All the world's a stage at some of Minnesota's bars. A new state ban on smoking in restaurants and other nightspots contains an exception for performers in theatrical productions. So some bars are getting around the ban by printing up playbills, encouraging customers to come in costume, and pronouncing them "actors." The customers are playing right along, merrily puffing away — and sometimes speaking in funny accents and doing a little improvisation, too. The state Health Department is threatening to bring the curtain down on these sham productions. But for now, it's on with the show. At The Rock, a...

What the ...? A St. Louis-area town is considering a bill that would ban swearing in bars, along with table-dancing, drinking contests and profane music. City officials contend the bill is needed to keep rowdy crowds under control because the historic downtown area gets a little too lively on some nights. City Councilman Richard Veit said he was prompted to propose the bill after complaints about bad bar behavior. He says it will give police some rules to enforce when things get too rowdy. But some bar owners worry the bill is too vague and restrictive, saying it may be...

Smoking ban leaves some bars smolderingA few ignore state's six-month-old law rather than lose customers. Officials continue to issue fines By Tracy Wheeler Beacon Journal medical writer Published on Sunday, Nov 18, 2007 Billy McFrye, owner of Corky's Thomastown Cafe, in Akron, Ohio, stands Nov. 16, 2007, in the patio built in May for smoking customers. He is fighting for smoking to be legal in it. The business leads Akron in smoking complaints. (Gavin Jackon/Akron Beacon Journal) In the first month of Ohio's public smoking ban, the little bar in a blue-collar Summit County neighborhood lost $1,000. The reason was...