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State amendment provides a loophole for cigars at some places
Jump to full article: WOWT Channel 6 (Omaha, NE), 2009-11-11
Intro: For the first time since smoking was banned inside Omaha businesses, some are now legally lighting up. A special license has been granted to a Benson business, the first within Omaha city limits.
A smoky bar hasn't been seen in Omaha in quite some time. The city outlawed the habit at such places in June 2008. Strict tobacco retailers were the exception.
"I can't tell you how many times I'd be at a bar, and I'd just reek. I didn't really care for that, so I was pretty happy they banned it."
A state ban took effect this past June. By September, it was amended with a loophole for business owners like John Larkin of Jake’s Cigar Bar & Spirits, 62nd & Maple.. "It's right in our name, Jake's Cigars,” he says, “and to not be able to smoke in the business was very tough, and now that we can, we expect cigar sales to go back up."
Monday, Larkin was granted a license to allow cigar smoking.A business qualifies with a class c liquor license, earning at least 10% of business from sales of tobacco or tobacco products. They cannot serve food and must have a walk-in humidor. A license costs $1,000, and it does not allow cigarette smoking.
With the first such license granted in Omaha, some familiar arguments resurface. “There is absolutely no safe level of second-hand smoke exposure," says Mark Welsch, president of the Group to Alleviate Smoking Pollution.
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