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An Omaha pool hall owner has renewed his legal challenge of the state's smoking ban.
Big John's Billiards has filed a revised complaint in Lancaster County District Court to argue the ban that went into effect June 1 is unconstitutional.
The statewide smoking ban includes exemptions for cigar bars, some hotel rooms, tobacco-only retailers, facilities that do research on the health effects of smoking, and private residences.
Big John's argues that the exceptions to the ban are unfair and should make the ban unconstitutional.
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Now that an anti-smoking group has lost the fight over whether cigar bars exist in Nebraska, it's focusing on where the smoke blows.
Mark Welsch, president of the Group to Alleviate Smoking Pollution, told regulators Thursday that smoking in cigar bars shouldn't be exempt from the state's anti-smoking law if smoke infiltrates neighboring shops or businesses.
Welsch, speaking before the Liquor Control Commission during a public hearing in Lincoln, also said a rule requiring ventilation systems in cigar bars should be struck down. He said it gives the impression that the air is clean.
Only an "indoor tornado" could make cigar-bar air safe, added Cindy Jeffrey of Lincoln, executive director of Health Education Inc. "And that's probably not practical."
Lancaster County District Judge Jodi Nelson on Wednesday denied a pool hall's request for a restraining order against the Nebraska Clean Indoor Air Act, which went into effect June 1.
Attorney Theodore Boecker Jr., who represents Big John Billiards Inc., claimed in a lawsuit filed in May against the state of Nebraska that the law was unconstitutional. . . .
Boecker argued in the lawsuit that the cigar bar exemption favored certain businesses with longtime tobacco ties while harming others like, for instance, the traditionally "smoke-filled pool hall." He said the court should strike down the entire ban and let Big John's operate as it normally did prior to June 1.
While bars and restaurants are obvious targets for Nebraska’s smoke-free ban that begins Monday, the East Central Health Department (ECDHD) is finding the much broader ramifications of the new law are largely misunderstood.
“What we have found as we’ve visited with a very wide variety of businesses in our service area, is that most business owners think the smoking ban only affects the bars and restaurants,” said the health department’s Environmental Health Coordinator Roberta Miksch. “The Nebraska Clean Indoor Air Act of 2008 requires indoor workplaces in Nebraska to be smoke-free effective June 1.
“This means the law applies to all public places from beauty shops to industrial sites, photo shops and auto repair shops to bowling alleys,” she said. *
Miksch said the law applies to all breakrooms, hallways, conference rooms and rest rooms.
An Omaha pool hall filed a lawsuit against the state of Nebraska this week over the statewide smoking ban that is soon to go into effect.
Big John's Billiards asked a Lancaster County judge to declare the Nebraska Clean Indoor Air Act unconstitutional and to grant an order to keep the state from enforcing the act, pending the resolution of the lawsuit.
The pool hall's attorney, Theodore Boecker Jr., asked: If the the act is meant to protect the public and employees from the dangers of secondhand smoke, why should employees of cigar bars and other exempt businesses be entitled to any less protection?
. Dave Heineman has signed a bill that would exempt cigar bars from the statewide smoking ban set to take effect in June.
Under the bill (LB355), only cigars, not cigarettes, could be smoked in cigar bars. And to be considered a cigar bar, at least 10% of a bar's sales would have to come from cigars and other tobacco and tobacco-related products - not including cigarettes.
Adam Braithwaite of Omaha was putting his 3-year-old in the car seat when he realized that his car and his kid smelled like cigarette smoke.
"I just thought, 'What am I doing to my kids, here? I've got to stop smoking,'" he said. . . .
E-cigs don't emit that harsh odor of tobacco smoke, and the exhaled mist dissipates instead of lingering, making secondhand smoke a non-issue.
Advocates of e-cigs say it's a great way to quit smoking because the nicotine mist contains no tar or any carcinogens of tobacco smoke.
After Braithwaite went from smoking to "vaping," as it's called, he decided to start selling e-cigs. He's opened a new business in Omaha called Vapor Options, which is now selling e-cigs to customers in 18 states.
The biggest boon for e-cigs in places like Lincoln and Omaha is that they don't violate local (or soon-to-be statewide) smoking bans.
That's why Braithwaite is meeting with as many bar owners and managers as possible, letting them know about e-cigs and trying to get the establishments to put up stickers that say "e-cigs allowed." . . .
The potential reintroduction of “smoking culture” into bars and nightclubs has anti-smoking groups nervous.
“I understand why people use the nicotine replacement aids,” said Serena Chen, regional tobacco policy director of the American Lung Association in California. “But I don’t understand why people want to pretend that they’re smoking.”
Chen believes that many ex-smokers will conclude that the e-cigarette is harmless and be lured back into the smoking trap.
“If you had a serial killer who liked to stab people, would you give him a rubber knife?” Chen asked. “This just boggles the mind.”
A judge Thursday snuffed out virtually any exception to Omaha's workplace smoking ban -- apparently making it illegal for people to light up in tobacco stores, hotel rooms, nursing home rooms, restaurant patios and even laboratories that conduct studies on smoking.
In a 16-page order, Douglas County District Judge Mark Ashford ruled that the city hadn't provided any reason for permitting smoking in those places and, therefore, the judge couldn't uphold those exceptions to the citywide ban on smoking in workplaces.
But before smokers stage any tobacco-rights rallies on the steps of the courthouse, city attorneys have some advice:
Let the smoke clear.
They say the questions raised by Ashford's ruling on a lawsuit filed by Will Prout, owner of Big John's Billiards, should be cured by the statewide smoking ban that takes effect June 1. Other attorneys agree that the city may be off the hook on June 1, but they say the state should brace itself for similar challenges to exemptions to the state's smoking ban.
A former Nebraska Supreme Court justice said this week the cigar bar bill approaching final reading in the Legislature would be found unconstitutional if challenged.
The American Cancer Society of Nebraska asked Norm Krivosha, a former Nebraska Supreme Court Justice and now an attorney in Naples, Fla., for the opinion on the bill (LB355), the Cancer Society's Dave Holmquist said.
Holmquist said he raised the question of constitutionality at the bill's hearing. His group sought the opinion from Krivosha before first-round debate because officials believed he would render an unbiased opinion.
"Our purpose was simply to get this on the radar screen," Holmquist said. "It's something that has to be seriously considered."
The bill would exempt cigar bars from the Nebraska Clean Indoor Air Act, which goes into effect June 1.
State Sen. Scott Lautenbaugh of Omaha recently introduced a bill that would exempt cigar bars from Nebraska's ban on smoking in public places.
Smoking opponents, however, view the bill as a significant loophole in the public health protections of the state's smoking ban.
"No one has the right to endanger someone else's health," said Mike Salkin, vice president of the Group to Alleviate Smoking Pollution. "It's a minimal trade-off for someone to smoke outside."
The proposal is scheduled for a public hearing on Monday. Lautenbaugh's measure would create the cigar bar exemption before Nebraska's statewide ban takes effect June 1. It also would require cities like Omaha and Lincoln, which have enacted their own smoking bans, to allow cigar bars.
Almost half the states now have comprehensive smoking bans on the books, but no neighboring states have restrictions quite as stringent as what's being proposed in South Dakota.
"We've all seen the studies that show the danger of secondhand smoke. People who don't smoke are involuntarily subjected to it," said Sen. Stan Adelstein, R-Rapid City, a co-sponsor of the bill. "That's the reason for the total removal of exceptions."
Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia, including Colorado, Minnesota, Nebraska and Montana, have passed comprehensive smoking laws, according to the American Lung Association.
Exceptions in those states include hotel rooms, tobacco product shops, scientific studies and traditional Native American ceremonies.
A Douglas County judge rejected a challenge to Omaha's smoking ban by Big John's Billiards.
District Judge Mark Ashford denied Big John's request for a temporary injunction against the smoking ban.
In a ruling issued Friday, Ashford said the business failed to show a substantial harm caused by the ban. . . .
Big John's said smokers can drive a few miles from Big John's and smoke in pool halls and bars in Ralston and La Vista that have keno.
Just as tougher restrictions on indoor smoking go into effect, a group is asking a judge to let them intervene in the case, to have the ban declared unconstitutional.
The group is made up of Big Red Keno, Horsemen's Park, the Beer and Loathing Bar in Dundee, and Linda Brennan, a housekeeper who works in homes where people smoke.
A judge's order has abolished exemptions to Omaha's public smoking ban.
The ban that took effect in fall 2006 let people smoke in keno bars and at Horseman's Park, for example.
But in May the Nebraska Supreme Court said the exemptions were unconstitutional.
The high court agreed with Marylebone Tavern co-owner Michelle Hug that the exemptions weren't fair to her bar, where people could no longer smoke.
The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled Friday that the exceptions to Omaha's smoking ban for keno parlors and some bars are unconstitutional.
The court agreed with Marylebone Tavern co-owner Michelle Hug that the exceptions to the ban created an unfair benefit for the exempt businesses.
Most businesses have already complied with the Omaha ban, but the City Council allowed a five-year grace period for bars that don't serve food, for keno parlors and for Horsemen's Park, a horse track.
The Supreme Court's ruling will likely end the exceptions to the city ban even before a new statewide smoking ban takes effect in June 2009. The only workplace exemptions to the statewide ban are for retail tobacco shops and places where smoking research is done.
The Supreme Court ruled that Omaha failed to offer evidence to support the exceptions to its smoking ban