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• Superior court judge upholds city smoking ban  

The legality of the Juneau smoking ordinance is less hazy after Superior Court Judge Philip Pallenberg shot down a private association's assertion that it was not subject to the city smoking ban.

In its lawsuit, the Fraternal Order of Eagles claimed that the ordinance infringed on its freedom of association under the United States and Alaska constitutions, its right to privacy and claimed illegal "intrusion" by the Juneau Police Department into its private establishment in the Mendenhall Valley to enforce the ordinance. The Eagles are the only group to have challenged the ordinance in court. . . .

The 19-page decision was filed Oct. 14. Pallenberg wrote in the summary judgment that other courts have uniformly rejected claims that smoking ordinances infringe on the freedom of association under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.

"One could not seriously argue that application of other penal laws, such as the laws against drug possession, theft, sexual contact with minors, or prostitution, to the conduct of members within the confines of a private club infringes upon the members' freedom of association," Pallenberg wrote. "All such laws regulate the actions of the members, not their choice of the people with whom they associate. In terms of its impact on freedom of association, regulation of smoking as an activity is not different in kind from regulation of these other activities."

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