Judge stops Elko saloon from using smoking ban loophole

What happened to our American freedom? What happened to equal rights? Don't bother to answer...I know the answer.

wow, this is sort of incredible.......you guys have some strange judges in mn.......sounds like this gives the green light to start pressing charges for all legal activity in mn, soon you will be getting pulled over in a 55 mph marked zone for going 55 mph, not because it is against the law but that the "spirit" of the law is being broken.......now your judges are the say all when it comes to determining what is "theatre" and what it not, hope you dont put on a sucky play with a acting smoker, you will be fined $10K from the county...your government frightens and scares me :(

Be against smoking bans if you want to be against them. Be against public health if you want to be against public health.
But to make the argument that this was within the intent of the law is childish.

Justice, smoking is not a protected class under the Constitution; so this has nothing to do with "equal rights." The amount of briefs on this subject is mind-numbing.

Answer me this: Why is your freedom above my freedom? Every anti-health person talks about how this infringes on the "freedom" of the smoker, but what about the "freedom" of the non-smoker. When the freedom of two groups clash, someone must be inconvenienced, and it only makes common sense for it to be the smoker.

Why?

It's a private activity.

sorry for the spelling errors

Common Sense wrote:

Be against smoking bans if you want to be against them. Be against public health if you want to be against public health.
But to make the argument that this was within the intent of the law is childish.
Justice, smoking is not a protected class under the Constitution; so this has nothing to do with "equal rights." The amount of briefs on this subject is mind-numbing.
Answer me this: Why is your freedom above my freedom? Every anti-health person talks about how this infringes on the "freedom" of the smoker, but what about the "freedom" of the non-smoker. When the freedom of two groups clash, someone must be inconvenienced, and it only makes common sense for it to be the smoker.
Why?
It's a private activity.

This is about personal property rights. The bar owner wants to allow smoking on his property. I love stopping at small town bars on my travels. These mom and pop taverns are a dying breed. Watch out, this is going to hit WI very hard, and very soon.

Property rights, yea right. What makes them so special in relation to the right of the people to outlaw smoking in public places -- places that are required to have a license to operate in the first place? Those same property rights you propose could be said to allow unregulated operations entirely, could be said to invalidate any license, any regulation. Drunkoncouch -- your notion of property rights is typical wingnut junk, you must be on your couch.

This is all bulls**t. Maybe everyone will get a clue when all of the personal freedoms are taken away. Telling a business owner what he/she can and can't do in their own establishment is stunning. WI's Tavern League is much too powerful and influential on the state gov't to allow this kind of atrocity to happen over there. I stopped buying smokes from the gas station to avoid the taxes so the hypocrite state does not collect the tobacco tax from me. Order them online, as low as $9 per carton from a Tribe on the east coast, tax free. The people who support this, and the elected officials who instituted this ban can eat my s**t.

Jim wrote:

Property rights, yea right. What makes them so special in relation to the right of the people to outlaw smoking in public places -- places that are required to have a license to operate in the first place? Those same property rights you propose could be said to allow unregulated operations entirely, could be said to invalidate any license, any regulation. Drunkoncouch -- your notion of property rights is typical wingnut junk, you must be on your couch.

The problem is 'wingnut" the people didn't decide, the Government did. The people had no say in it. I don't recall being able to vote for or against this? Do you?

Yuck. All the whining about smokers rights has gotten so tiresome. It's the same old rhetoric over and over. What's done is done. Get over it and move on. Please.

What a drag - the MDH sure has some powers don't they - hope they don't come in to my home and make me stop smoking there. I gotta' go, The MDH has scheduled an A** wiping session for me because they have determined that I can't make that decision for my self either.

i am just wondering why they can stop something that is not illegal. So your arguement is that Judges can change laws to meet what outcome they want on a case?

How are you suppose to not be charged with crimes if you are following the law and then a Judge states that even though the law reads "smoking is permitted in theatrical performances" and you hold a theatrical performance where you smoke, that a judge can just file an injunction that stops the legal practice.

just seems backwards to me. Judges are suppose to enforce the law, not change them.

if it is illegal to smoke in public places why don't you make cigs illegal....because you can't!
drinking has cause more death than anything i know more than any drug but you can't make that illegal either can you because the majority of your polictians drink let's get together and people and make that illegal to do out in public or around children or other people who don't drink i don't eat pork and it kills let make it illegal they say fat people offends people let's make them illegal..... sounds stupid so does the smoking ban.....

time on your hands wrote:

if it is illegal to smoke in public places why don't you make cigs illegal....because you can't!
drinking has cause more death than anything i know more than any drug but you can't make that illegal either can you because the majority of your polictians drink let's get together and people and make that illegal to do out in public or around children or other people who don't drink i don't eat pork and it kills let make it illegal they say fat people offends people let's make them illegal..... sounds stupid so does the smoking ban.....

Being offended by someones actions (being fat) is very different than having your health effected (smoking) by someones actions. Being in a room with a fat person will not effect your health, while the same is not true for being in a room with a smoker.

wogggieee wrote:

<quoted text>
Being offended by someones actions (being fat) is very different than having your health effected (smoking) by someones actions. Being in a room with a fat person will not effect your health, while the same is not true for being in a room with a smoker.

http://milkandcookies.com/link/101779/detail/

Let the bar owners decide, let the bar patrons decide, let free market forces decide. Allow bar owners to decide if they want to have a smoke free bar or not. Then the non-smokers can go to the smoke free bars and the smokers can go to the smoking permitted bars and the people who don't care either way can go to whatever bar they want.

The problem with this solution is that the smoke free bars would lose much of there business to the smoking permited bars and some of the smoke free bars
would go out of business entirely and so to remove the free market forces and to remove the public's choice to patronize the bar of their choice we have to pass a law making them all equal and removing the private business owner's choice to decide if he want's make money from smokers and non smokers or only from non smokers.

All the while of course they will be serving alcohol and people will drive after drinking and cause crashes resulting in property damage injurys and death. But there will be no dicussion of banning
the sale of alcohol or limiting each person to 2 drinks per night because that whole Prohibition thing in the 1920's was a failure.