Jump to full article: Hartford (CT) Courant, 2006-02-09
Author: LYNNE TUOHY, COURANT STAFF WRITER
Intro: For many, the state's 2003 ban on smoking in restaurants and bars has pitted physical health against financial well-being, and has created a controversy over fundamental fairness that could rise to constitutional proportions. Five justices of the state Supreme Court Wednesday presided over spirited arguments on the validity of the ban.
Restaurants and bars owners are subject to the ban. Casinos and private clubs - such as golf and yacht clubs, veterans club halls and orders of the Moose - are not. People such as Adams, who put together a coalition of nearly 100 bar owners to underwrite a challenge to the law, are feeling the pinch in no small way.
Adams said his gross revenue has dropped by $10,000 to $15,000 a month, because his bar is a scant 5-mile drive from a casino. . . .
What is at odds is the state's selective imposition of the ban.
Attorney Jan C. Trendowski, representing a band of bar owners, said the smoking ban has created a dramatically unequal playing field.
"Our ban allows smoking in a lot of restaurants and a lot of bars, and bars smoking in a lot of other restaurants and a lot of other bars," Trendowski said. "The only difference is who owns them." . . .
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal argued that the ban could easily survive a legal challenge because it amounted to "a classic case of legislative line-drawing," one that addresses a compelling public health issue "one step at a time." He said fairness and privacy issues prompted the legislature to exempt private clubs.
Superior Court Judge Douglas Lavine, who upheld the constitutionality of the ban in November 2004, took note of legislative debate equating private clubs to an "extension of our living rooms." Chief Justice William J. Sullivan Wednesday took sharp exception to that characteristic and the constitutional soundness of the ban overall.
"I don't know of any club that is an extension of my home," Sullivan said. "They're bars, just like cafes and everything else. ...
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