Property Rights Newsletta

The Property Rights Newsletter February 18, 2011 - Issue #602 "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed" - Mahatma Gandhi

HI Bill would allow drinkers to light up. SB708 would create a “smoking establishment permit” that would allow patrons of bars, cabarets and private clubs to legally smoke. There are bar owners who ignore the state’s smoking ban and risk fines and penalties, but this bill would give them the right to let their customers puff away — for a price. The cost of a permit runs from $1,000 to $3,000 and money generated would go into the state’s general fund. The bill would continue to ban smoking in restaurants with bars. WA state considers allowing cigar smoking lounges. State lawmakers are looking into the possibility of allowing people to smoke cigars and pipes at some cigar lounges and tobacco shops... if you buy an endorsement. The cost of applying for the state endorsement would be $15,000 for cigar lounges, and $5,000 for tobacco stores. The stores would have to pay the fee every year to renew their endorsements. Refuse to Hire Smokers? What's Next? By Pam Parker. To not hire a worker who chooses to use a legal product is wrong. While a hospital, or any property owner for that matter, should be free to make decisions on what may take place on private property, it doesn't own the bodies of its employees. What employees do legally on their own time is no business of any employer. Otherwise, we are taking a big step on a slippery slope with no clear end. What about people who use salt or sugar? Will prospective employees eventually be forced to give a sample in a cup to make sure they're under some predetermined limit? Will they be subjected to a body mass index test? Will we start to hear claims of "secondhand obesity" -- the danger of obese people making their nonobese friends gain weight? From The Mailbag IL: Tenants told to stop smoking or move. Once the transition year ends, a first violation of the smoking ban will cost tenants $350. A second violation will result in eviction. If the transition at Kingsbury is successful, Habitat said it might create a smoke-free environment in its other buildings. KY: SAYS NO! Smoking ban repealed in Campbell County. Two newly appointed commissioners, who were elected partly because of their opposition to the ban, followed up on their campaign pledges, and voted in favour of a repeal. NY: The 14th Annual Stoli & Stogies Dinner! 4/7/11 Sponsored by Uptown Cigar and Drew Estate. Includes all you can eat buffet, unlimited martinis, and 3 cigars UT: Legislators Ill-advised in Moves Against Tobacco, Says Premium Cigar Association. “These kinds of proposals are ill-advised and should be dumped as bad ideas,” according to Chris McCalla, legislative director of the IPCPR which maintains that business owners should be left to decide for themselves to ban or not to ban and that Governor Gary R. Herbert has promised “no new taxes of any kind.” WY: SAYS NO! Judge Day kills smoking ban. Ninth Judicial District Court Judge Timothy Day on Wednesday struck down the county-wide smoking ban passed by the Teton County Board of Health two years ago. Day said in a ruling the Smokefree Air Rule of 2009 not only was outside of the authority of the county board of health but that the act of passing it was unconstitutional. France: Paris – A city of Smokers? By Peter Thurgood. Inside the area cordoned off by the plastic awning, it was comfortable and warm, and the waitress accepted me and my smoking habit with a friendly smile, and no irritating hand waving in front of her face, which we seem to experience in the UK. Other customers came and went, some smoked, some didn’t, but the atmosphere at all times was warm and friendly, just the opposite to the intolerance smokers are subjected to here in the UK. Scotland: I smoke despite, or perhaps in spite of, the protestations of those who class me as a threat to society. MPs can smoke in certain areas of Westminster; Iain Gray surely manages to have a puff somewhere in Holyrood; prisoners can smoke – yet the Royal Edinburgh Hospital is now a no-go area for smokers and Belinda puts the case for continuing to keep psychiatric hospitals’ smoking rooms exempt. Even a non-smoker couldn’t argue with the validity of her argument. Spain: Spanish bars report plunging sales since smoking ban. The FEHR last month launched an effort to obtain half a million signatures on a petition to demand that parliament change the legislation. It has also called for demonstrations in several towns and cities. UK: The British Pub - A thesis on it's decline and fall. By Pete Robinson. The majority of front-line publicans were intelligent enough to have grave concerns. But their voice was drowned out by those upper echelons of the industry, men-in-suits, who presume to speak for us.

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