Tag: Smoking Ban

A movement is afoot. Smoking ban opponents, bar and restaurant owners are fighting back. In a different way. Having the anti-property rights smoking ban in effect has hurt many businesses throughout the state, causing some to close, and further blurring the line between what are still recognized rights by government. The owners of establishments in Michigan who are unwilling to accept as legitimate the nanny state ban on smokers in their own environments have another way of making their point.

By making trespassers out of state legislators.

Until the smoking ban is repealed, there are 500 places in Michigan which will have on hand pictures and names of 86'd patrons that come from a select group in Lansing.  Our state legislators.

What a wonderful way to drive home a point.

Bar owner:

"Sir? But I am going to have to ask you to leave."

State Legislator

"Say what? But I am here with my family ... "

Bar owner:

"I'm sorry, this is private property, and you are trespassing."

That simple.

I now like the ban.. it's saved me hundreds of dollars... I just don't go to bars anymore... fixed up my "Man Cave" and have 2, 3, or 4 people over several days a week to watch the Tigers, NBA Playoffs, Stanley Cup Finals, and Golf... not all of us smoke, but we all enjoy the .75 per bottle of Labatt Blue... can also burn a fatty while we're at it... I figure in the last year, I have saved about $2,500 from not going to the bar and having some beers and playing Keno...

It has been over six weeks since Michigan's ban on smoking in most bars and restaurants took effect, and I have to admit it was nice sitting there without the smoke entering my lungs and permeating my clothing.

The finest representatives were put to the test on this issue and failed.  Somehow, in the test of constitutional understanding, there are few in our political system who could muster even a barely passing D-.  Core beliefs aside even for "conservatives" who found their "pet peeve" to be in stark contrast to principles they had presumably held.  In the end I guess its ok to tell people how to run their business, who may attend it, and now what they can consume while there.

Going through the recorded roll-call vote something more than the Left's chronic trouble with intellectual consistency stuck out with a sore thumb. One member of the Democratic caucus with a particular rooting interest in this fight declined the opportunity to cast a vote.

Mike Huckleberry isn't just a freshman Dem legislator, he is also a restaurant owner. A ban on smoking in bars and restaurants would directly affect his own ability to draw a dinner crowd and maintain his non-legislative livelihood amid the ever-worsening Granholm-Cherry economic crisis.

So why no vote, instead of a no vote? Read on...

The Associated Press reports that the Democrats' bill carves out one not insignificant but highly incongruous exception.  Business is booming on casino floors across the Motor City and it would suffer were the legislature to eliminate patrons' right to light a square.  Banning smoking would cost the casinos more than a couple of jobs and the Democrats can't have that.  Killing jobs in bars and restaurants... that's OK.  Because apparently some jobs are more important than others.

"Last time I checked, picking and choosing what businesses fail in Michigan is not in our lawmakers' job description," said Lance Binoniemi, executive director of the Michigan Licensed Beverage Association.

Representative Jim Stamas provided the lone dissenting voice in committee, but even some Lefties recognize the destructive nature of their Majority's legislation.  The AP:

Committee chair Bert Johnson, D-Highland Park, said he supports broadening the exemption to include bars, small businesses he said are struggling to survive "our tough economy." One approach would permit smoking in any business with an age requirement of 21 years. That would exempt some bars from the ban but not restaurants.

The rest of Johnson's Party disagrees.  And we've played this game before.  

We can go around and around about personal freedom, health, general welfare, the whole kit and caboodle.  Sadly, the concept of a smoking "ban" appears to be a settled issue in the legislature.  Last cycle the House did what they did yesterday, voting to kill jobs but only certain jobs.  The Senate at least managed a little consistency, voting to ban smoking inside public establishments across the board... no carve-outs for the Democrats' special interest pals.

Then again, maybe the elimination of personal freedom ISN'T a settled issue. Senate Republicans aren't idiots.  They know that an across the board ban on smoking would never fly in the House.  By approving a ban on smoking they're effectively ensuring a ban on smoking never becomes law.  Shrewd.

Dillon and the House Dems failed to move the Senate bill last year and if the Reg Reform Committee's actions this week are any indication they haven't learned a single new trick.  So round and round we go.  Which is pretty OK on this end.  In their zeal to kill SOME jobs while managing to protect their political donors and local cash cows, Team Dillon winds up accidentally protecting jobs and personal freedom.

Oops.

Not only does a disproportionate amount of hot air continue to come pouring out of Lansing but now the Democrats in the House of Representatives are abandoning one of their cardinal issues, shelving plans to force small businesses to prohibit smoking on their own property.  And SVSU's greenie crowd aren't the only ones up in arms.

According to the Detroit News:

Sen. Ray Basham, D-Taylor, a leading proponent of the smoking ban, said lawmakers can work on more than a couple issues at a time.

"I'm OK with multi-tasking," Basham said. "When 3,000 people are dying in Michigan every year from secondhand smoke and smoking-related diseases are costing us billions a year for health care, we should find time to deal with this."

House Speaker Andy Dillon disagrees.  

House Speaker Andy Dillon, D-Redford Township, said he has decided the House should zero in this spring on balancing the cash-strapped budget and creating jobs in the wounded economy.

"The smoking ban is an important issue, but jobs and the budget are more important right now," Dillon said. "I see us getting back to the smoking issue by summer."

Lansing has a weird complex where one minute they're not thinking things through enough and the next they're wearing grooves in the carpet with all of their back and forth.  They've been discussing a complete workplace smoking ban for as long as I've been in the game and Dillon has made it a point of emphasis in the past.

Practically speaking, if they want to activity X in location Y, they've got the legislation ready to go.   One reason they shelve it... even the Democrats, boasting an overwhelming partisan majority in the legislature, aren't on board with the concept.  The votes just plain aren't there.

And Mr. Speaker?  Lets stop blowing smoke at the press... you couldn't care less about jobs and the economy right now.  The only thing on your caucus's mind this week is the legislative spring break on which you sent them.  You're not focusing on one piece of legislation at the expense of the other.  You're focusing on your tans.

Read on...