Smoking Ban Amendment Introduced

Today Minnesota Representatives Larry Howes, Tom Emmer, Tom Hackbarth, Loren Solberg, and Tom Rukavina introduced a bill, HF257 that would exempt certain bars from the smoking ban.

If this bill becomes law in in current form, all bars that make most of their sales in liquor would be permitted to allow smoking, provided that a modern ventilation system is installed. It would also allow bar portions of a bar/restaurant to allow smoking, provided that the bar is physically separated from the restaurant area. The full text of the bill is available here, and you can follow the status of the bill here.

So, what does this mean? Well, there’s not a companion bill in the Senate, yet. And, the bill has been referred to the Health Care and Human Services Policy and Oversight Committee, which is chaired by none other than Paul Thissen and Tina Liebling, who are extremely narrow-minded when it comes to the smoking ban. However, we do have some supporters in that committee, so we’ll keep our fingers crossed.

It certainly wouldn’t hurt to email your House Rep and let them know how you feel about this proposed exemption. Also, email or call the reps in the committee–their email addresses and phone numbers can be found here. Let them know that the smoking ban really hurts small bars, and that you support this exemption!