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Stub ‘em Out: Kansas City Smoking Ban Here to Stay!
kc confidential
10/6/2009
This just in; Kansas City’s controversial smoking ban for local bars and restaurants is a keeper.
“Last June, upon a challenge to the ordinance brought by a bartender from JC’s Sports Bar in Kansas City’s Northland backed by the KCBRC, the Missouri Court of Appeals held that the ordinance did not conflict with Missouri’s statewide smoking law, the 1992 Indoor Clean Air Act…” says Jonathan Sternberg, the attorney representing the Kansas City Business Rights Coalition, a group of bars and restaurants opposed the ban. “The state law declares that bars posting signs stating ‘Nonsmoking Areas are Unavailable’ ’are not considered a public place’ for the purposes of smoking regulation, treating them the same as private homes. On August 11, the bartender asked the Supreme Court of Missouri to transfer the case and decide the appeal anew. The Supreme Court generally grants about 10% of transfer requests.”
Sternberg and the Coalition got the bad news today.
“This afternoon, the Supreme Court issued a one-line order denying the bartender’s application for transfer, thereby declining to hear the case,” Sternberg says.
The bottom line: as far as Sternberg and the KCBRC are concerned the smoking ban ordinance battle is o-v-e-r.
“It was a good case,” Sternberg muses. “If it hadn’t been an interesting case, the court of appeals wouldn’t have published an opinion on it. The supreme court simply didn’t want to hear it.”
That said, smoking ordinances like Kansas City’s along with a recent nationwide ban on the sale of flavored and clove cigarettes sets the country on a course for its next prohibition, Sternberg ventures. With the bootleggers of yesteryear likely to be replaced by the buttleggers of tomorrow.
As for KBRC honcho Bill Nigro, “I guess the fight is over now,” he quips, “and now that we’ve lost I’m going after the barbecue grills because I want to save everyone from secondhand smoke.” |
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