A Synopsis:
U.S. District Judge Lewis Babcock has just refused to block a statewide smoking ban from going into effect on July 1st, ruling that the bar owners who sought the temporary restraining order has little chance of winning their arguments that the law was unconstitutional.
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), which had worked with the Attorney General's office and supplied both factual information and legal arguments, hailed the decision as a victory. "By July 4th, people in Arizona will enjoy freedom from toxic and carcinogenic tobacco smoke,"
ASH said. "Businesses have no right to insist that their customers inhale tobacco smoke pollution as a condition of being served, any more than they must inhale asbestos or benzene."
The bar owners had argued that they would lose money if the ban went into effect, but information ASH provided to the Attorney General proved that comprehensive smoking bans don't hurt business for restaurants and bars, and, indeed, often help them. http://ash.org/econ
The bar owners also argued that there was no rational basis for the few exemptions in the comprehensive smoking ban for casinos, cigar bars, the Denver International Airport smoking lounge, and small private workplaces with three or fewer employees.
But legislators were concerned that casinos in Colorado would be on unequal ground with Indian casinos which are unregulated by state law.
Also, legislators heard evidence indicating smoking bans generally have had a positive impact on the restaurant business but a negative effect on casinos. Airports logically could be exempted because they attract mostly non-Coloradans, as opposed to businesses subject to the ban, and small businesses are frequently exempted from a wide a variety of laws as a matter of legislative policy and choice.
Indeed, as ASH pointed out, numerous legislators have adopted nonsmokers' rights laws which ban smoking in some places but not others, and these laws have stood the test of time and constitutionality, says law professor John Banzhaf of ASH. See: http://ash.org/smokingbans.html
ASH also noted that no smoking bans apparently have been overturned on substantive constitutional grounds.
PROFESSOR JOHN F. BANZHAF III
Executive Director and Chief Counsel
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
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