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Here on the Flathead Indian Reservation, the Montana Clean Indoor Air Act has run into some hazy skies.
Tribally owned bars and casinos are exempt from the state's smoking ban. That means the Grey Wolf Peak Casino north of Evaro and the Kwa Taq Nuk Resort in Polson, owned by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, still offer both smoking and nonsmoking casino areas.
But here on the Flathead Reservation, some enrolled tribal members who own liquor licenses also allow smoking in their bars.
"The way I understand it, the state and health department won't pursue it if we allow it, because they have nowhere to take it," says Lori Peterson, an enrolled member of the tribes and owner of the Pheasant Lounge in Ronan.
Rick Wheeler's bar sits a block away, on the other side of Ronan's Main Street.
"Ninety percent of my customers smoke," says Wheeler, who is not a tribal member. If he enforces the smoking ban, Wheeler says, virtually all of them will simply cross the street to a bar where they can light up inside, and the business he's owned for 20 years will go belly-up.
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ROCKY BOY -- Smoking and gambling have gone hand in hand for Deanna Standing Rock for years.
But when the statewide smoking ban went into full effect earlier this month, adding bars and casinos to the list of public places where smoking is not allowed, Standing Rock didn't fear an end to her smoke-and-slots routine. That's because she plays at a casino located on one of Montana's seven Indian reservations, where smoking is still allowed inside bars and casinos.
Reservations are exempt from the Montana Clean Indoor Air Act, although far-reaching smoking bans have been implemented by Montana's sovereign tribes. The act does apply to nontribal members who own bars and casinos on Indian reservations.
The exemption has created a competitive edge for businesses such as the Chippewa Cree tribe's Northern Winz Casino on the Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation, according to casino officials. They are now marketing the casino as smoker friendly in order to lure customers away from bars and casinos located off the reservation.
A decision made four years ago in the Legislature will soon kick in across the state as Montana bars, restaurants and casinos go smoke-free on Oct. 1. And while the change rankles those with familiar routines of sitting down at their favorite bar with a drink and a cigarette after a long day, the exodus to the outdoors seems to be greeted by many smokers with a sigh of resignation.
"It seems pretty much like they've just accepted it," Patty Higgins, a bartender at the Remington in Whitefish, said of her smoking clientele. "A lot of them don't believe it's going to happen."
But that doesn't mean she likes the imminent change, even though her workplace will be smoke-free.
On Oct. 1, Montana's Clean Indoor Air Act's final phase kicks in, making it illegal to smoke inside public places.
At that point, casinos, bars and taverns that currently can let patrons smoke because minors are not allowed, will be forced to tell smokers to go outside.
If they don't, the business could face a misdemeanor charge and fines from $100 to $500.
"I'll probably just go home on my lunch hour instead," Nolevanko said. "I think the casinos are going to lose money because of this."
It's a belief shared by many owners of casinos and bars, said John Hayes, executive director of the Cascade County Tavern Association.
The Montana Supreme Court is overturning a lower court decision that would have forced the state into arbitration over the multimillion dollar tobacco settlement. . . .
The tobacco companies have argued the states are not diligently enforcing parts of the settlement that deal with non-conforming companies. They want national arbitration on the issue, and a lower state court agreed that was appropriate.
“participating manufacturers” (PMs), while the tobacco companies that are not signatories to the MSA are known as “non-participating manufacturers” (NPMs).
¶3 In exchange for the Settling States’ release of all claims, the PMs agreed to certain marketing restrictions and to make annual payments to the Settling States “for the advancement of public health” and “the implementation of important tobacco-related public health measures.” The PMs do not make payments directly to individual Settling States; rather, each PM is required to make a single, nationwide payment into an escrow account, and the amounts are then allocated among the Settling States. Each PM’s individual contribution to the account is based on its market share. Likewise, each Settling State receives an “allocable share” of the sum of all payments made by the PMs in the year in question. Montana’s allocable share is 0.4247591%. The State received $24.8 million in MSA funds in 2006; $25.8 million in 2007; and $34.6 million in 2008.
¶4 The MSA assigns several responsibilities to an “Independent Auditor,” which is defined as “a major, nationally recognized, certified public accounting firm.”3 Specifically, the Independent Auditor
shall calculate and determine the amount of all payments owed pursuant to [the MSA], the adjustments, reductions and offsets thereto (and all resulting carry-forwards, if any), the allocation of such payments, adjustments, reductions, offsets and carry-forwards among the Participating Manufacturers and among the Settling States, and shall perform all other calculations in connection with the foregoing . . . .
In calculating the PMs’ annual payments, the Independent Auditor takes the base amount owed by the PMs for the calendar year and then applies a series of adjustments, , , ,
¶6 The present litigation concerns the PMs’ annual payments for 2006. The PMs had lost the requisite percentage of market share in 2003, and an economic consulting firm
5
had determined that the disadvantages imposed by the MSA were a “significant factor” contributing to that loss. Thus, the PMs asked the Independent Auditor to offset their 2006 payments by the amount of the 2003 NPM Adjustment. In response, the Settling States contended that they each had enacted Qualifying Statutes which were in full force and effect in 2003 and that the Independent Auditor should presume, in the absence of substantial evidence to the contrary, that state officials had “diligently enforced” those statutes. The PMs, however, argued that the Independent Auditor must “presume just the opposite,” i.e., that the statutes had not been diligently enforced.
¶7 The Independent Auditor declined to apply the NPM Adjustment to the PMs’ 2006 payments. . . .
the dispute in the present case, as framed in the State’s motion, is whether Montana diligently enforced a Qualifying Statute. We reject the PMs’ attempts to repackage the dispute in this case as something it clearly is not. . . .
¶28 The District Court erred in granting the PMs’ motion to compel arbitration. We accordingly reverse the District Court’s order and remand this case for further proceedings consistent with this Opinion.
LIBBY, Mont. — A reckoning in one of American history’s worst industrial disasters, which unfolded here over seven decades as an asbestos-tainted mineral was dug from the ground and processed, begins Thursday when five former mine executives go to trial on federal criminal charges.
The case is highly unusual in that prosecutors have generally avoided criminal charges in the broad arena of asbestos law, leaving the issue to the civil courts.
But the story of the now-closed mine and its adjacent mill is different, because it involves not only miners but also their families and neighbors, many of whom became ill just living in this remote northwestern corner of Montana.
At least 200 deaths and thousands of illnesses are known to be related to the town’s exposure to the mine’s billowing dust clouds of vermiculite . . .
The company did ban smoking at the mine in 1978 — smoking compounds the dangers of asbestos, doctors say — and also issued respirator masks to workers. But showers that the miners could have used at the end of their shifts before heading home were ruled out, because they might have overly worried people. . . .
Legal experts say that some of the prosecution’s case could be particularly hard to prove, especially the charges that Grace executives obstructed justice by obfuscating in interviews with investigators at the Environmental Protection Agency, and then conspired to cover up their knowledge of the asbestos risks.
“Companies have a right under the First Amendment, established by the Supreme Court and recently reinforced, to advocate on their own behalf,” said Lester Brickman, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York.
The Montana Clean Indoor Act is a state law that protects all Montanans from the hazards of secondhand tobacco smoke in all enclosed places open to the public. The law went into effect Oct. 1, 2005 and since then, several studies have been conducted concerning the role of the clean air act.
According to a survey by the Montana Tobacco Use and Prevention Program in Helena, a smoke-free ordinance was associated with a 40-percent reduction in heart attacks over a six-month period. The study was published in the British Medical Journal in 2004 and has since been replicated five times - twice in the U.S. as well as in Scotland, Ireland and Italy.
Linda Lee of MTUPP said by adopting the Clean Indoor Air Act, the Montana Legislature recognized the right of nonsmokers to breathe smoke-free air in the name of protecting public health.
More than 90 percent of public buildings and workplaces in Montana became smoke-free two years ago when the Montana Clean Indoor Air Act went into effect.
On Oct. 1, 2009, all bars and casinos in the state will be nonsmoking as well.
Even though the total smoking ban is still a couple of years away, some bar owners in the state are choosing to outlaw smoking now, while others are worrying about how they'll cope once their patrons can't light up a cigarette. . . .
Mark Staples, attorney for the Montana Tavern Association, hasn't heard any rumblings of trying to fight the smoking ban, adding it hasn't been on the forefront for tavern owners since it passed.
Tovson knows that bars in Boston and New York City, where the winters can be just as bad for outdoor smokers as Montana, have been smoke-free for a couple of years and they're still making money. He still thinks the 2009 ban will have a negative impact on his business.
"Maybe I'm just worrying too much," he said.
A parent complaint Friday morning to the Jefferson High School administration about a performance Thursday of Grease resulted in the play being altered for Friday's show.
The parent, Marian Olsen, wife of the biology teacher and JHS basketball coach Don Olsen, hadn't seen the play.
However, she submitted a letter to the administration asking that the final performance of the play Friday night be canceled.
She objected to foul language, cigarette smoking and the play's message.
Her letter concluded, "I wonder if a second showing is even necessary."
The Montana Clean Indoor Air Act took effect one year ago today. It bans indoor smoking in many places — but not all.
Indoor puffing remains legal in some Montana bars, and the law doesn't cover dwellings such as apartment buildings or some retirement centers. It gives most businesses with liquor licenses until 2009 to comply with the prohibition.
At its one-year anniversary, the law works for some, but others wish it went further.
The science on secondhand smoke is no longer ambiguous: Secondhand smoke kills.
A Department of Revenue hearing later this week will address so-called “little cigars,” which smoking opponents view as a marketing gimmick used by tobacco companies to make their products attractive to kids and to skirt cigarette taxes.
A proposed tweaking of state law would classify as cigarettes several little cigar products that currently are taxed at a much lower rate.
The change would apply cigarette taxes to any product that meets two or more of eight criteria, including being sold in packs of 20 or 25 or cartons of 10 packs, having the same size and shape as regular cigarettes or having a filter.
At a press conference Tuesday, representatives of health groups pointed out that some little cigars come in flavors like cherry or mint cholocate and have saccharin in the filters to sweeten the taste. Aside from being wrapped in brown paper instead of white, they look a lot like cigarettes. . . .
Holding up a fistful of individually packaged little cigars in hard plastic containers, Betty Beverly of the Montana Senior Citizen Association said the small, single-smoke packages look benign.
“If you looked at these in your child’s backpack, you’d think they’re magic markers,” she said. “They’re very cleverly disguised.”
If you looked at these in your child’s backpack, you’d think they’re magic markers. They’re very cleverly disguised.Betty Beverly of the Montana Senior Citizen Association, olding up a fistful of individually packaged little cigars in hard plastic containers at a press conference.
Besides being bad for your health, smoking can get you evicted from your home. That was the lesson learned Monday by JoAnn Clemons, a 75-year-old woman who had a leg amputated last August.
Since then, home for Clemons has been the Aspen Meadows Retirement Community at 3155 Ave. C, owned and operated by Billings Clinic.
She was informed by letter on Monday that she is being evicted for violations of Aspen Meadows' nonsmoking policy, which prohibits smoking anywhere on campus, including the driveway, parking lot and interior sidewalks. She was told to clear out by June 7.
Clemons insists that both times she was supposedly found to be in violation of the smoking ban, she was on public property, once on the city sidewalk just beyond the Aspen Meadow campus, and then actually in the street beyond the sidewalk on Saturday, when she is said to have committed the violation that resulted in her eviction notice. . . .
Clemons said she used to smoke pretty heavily, but when she started having health problems in March 2005, she cut way back.
"I don't smoke but maybe one cigarette a week," she said. "I am not addicted to cigarettes. I smoke to relax."
Media literacy national expert Peter DeBennedittis will speak to parents and students in Dixon Monday night. Media Literacy Photo
When Peter DeBennedittis speaks to parents and their children, he's trying to teach them how to recognize how tobacco companies are using media giants in this country to lure them into addictive habits.
"Eighty-five percent of all media - books, magazines, TV, radio, newspapers, movies, billboards - is owned by six corporations," DeBennedittis, a former advertising consultant working with a nationwide group called Media Literacy, told Missoulian.com this week. DeBennedittis will speak Monday at 7 p.m. at 10 B Street in Dixon.
"Those six corporations have freedom of speech," he added. "The rest of us, we pay for it."
DeBennedittis said the big corporations "are beholden to advertisers regardless of whether those advertisers are selling vice, or addiction, or even death. They're happy to take the money."
He said it's noticeable in movies in which chain smoking is common, and he wondered out loud if that's artistic or paid for. "It doesn't really matter, that's the message that's being sent," DeBennedittis said.
He identified the corporations as Disney, which owns ABC; Viacom, which owns CBS, MTV, Infinity Broadcasting and Paramount Pictures; General Electric, which has NBC and Universal Pictures; News Corp., which includes Fox Broadcasting and 20th Century Fox; AOL Time Warner, which owns HBO, CNN and Warner Brothers Studios; and Bertelsmann, a German corporation with worldwide media holdings. . . .
"In rural communities folks have lives," he laughed, "and are rooted in the community. They're doing things for their livelihood that are not centered around media or a big urban culture. Consequentially they're not as influenced (by) the mass message that's being sent all across the country." . . .
DeBennedittis called for a "revolution here around the media," saying the founding fathers did not intend for democracy to be the purview of six entities with the ability to tell everyone what's going on.
He called for breaking up media monopolies and returning to the days when there were limits on the number of radio or television stations an individual or corporation could own. . . .
In addition to speaking to parents and kids, DeBennedittis also does training. He said Montana is the only state in the nation requiring media literacy education in its schools, joining all of Europe, Australia and Canada in that regard.
Montana smokers who buy cigarettes over the Internet to avoid paying state taxes are beginning to find they may have to cough up the tax money anyway.
State agencies working with three major Internet tobacco sellers have started sending tax notices in the mail, alerting buyers that they must pay.
"What we're trying to do is make sure everybody understands that purchasing cigarettes over the Internet is illegal, and that they owe the tax on those cigarettes," said Gene Huntington, administrator of the Gambling Control Division in the state Justice Department. "And Internet sellers are required to report the names of the people they've sold to."
The state Department of Revenue recently received its first list of names from three major Internet cigarette sellers and mailed bills to 89 buyers across Montana who purchased cigarettes online. It obtained the names from smartsmoker.com, buycheapcigarettes.com and ordersmokesdirect.com.