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Bar, restaurant smoking ban wouldn't hurt Michigan economy, report says 

-Former Senate Majority Leader Ken Sikkema said today that banning smoking in bars and restaurants would have no adverse economic impact -- and he wishes the Legislature had passed such a law when he was there.

"There were other things that were getting in the way, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have passed it," Sikkema said. "I wish we had."

He said lawmakers were caught up in other issues--especially the state budget and increasing the minimum wage--before he was term-limited out of the Senate in 2006. That year, a surgeon general's report provided strong, new evidence of the perils of second-hand smoke, prompting a flurry of state and local anti-smoking laws elsewhere around the United States.

Sikkema, a Republican from Wyoming, made his comments while introducing a report on smoke-free research he co-authored in his current position with Public Sector Consultants, a Lansing-based public policy firm.

The report was prepared on behalf of The Campaign for Smokefree Air, which is backing legislation passed by the House last year and pending in the Senate.

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