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February 12, 2004
Gettin' Nasty
The battle between the anti-smokers and pro-property rights people wasn't settled by yesterday's election.....and it's looking to get nasty.
Coolwater owner Rick Schweik told the crowd he would not recognize the new ordinance, and that Coolwater, Common Grounds, and On the Mark do not plan to enforce the city's new smoking ban.
I'm familiar with 2 of those 3 businesses, and they ostensibly have a legitimate beef. They're primarily bars that also serve food, but they do not meet the ordinance's requirements to qualify for the bar exemption.
The city's response?
City Attorney Kit Williams says, "If a business owner would constantly ignore the ordinance then there's a provision in the ordinance that says that that person's business license can be revoked or suspended. The city provides or issues licenses to various bars and restaurants in order to sell alcohol, and if we revoke that license, they could no longer sell alcohol."
In other words, they plan to use every trick in the book to punish transgressors.
Gonna get real interesting before this is over.
Posted by Rita at February 12, 2004 06:31 AM
Comments
I woke up this morning to our first, and probably only, snow of the winter. It's sort of unusual, but interesting. Bummer about your smoke nazis. People here are so involved in finding food and maintaining shelter that they rarely express attitude about the non-malicious personal habits of their neighbors.
Posted by: kenneth at February 12, 2004 08:26 AM
It really is madness to waste so much energy on things such as this. Live and let smoke. They like the tax dollars don't they?
Posted by: Andy at February 12, 2004 02:55 PM
Ugh.
It never ends.
EVER!
Posted by: Da Goddess at February 12, 2004 10:24 PM
That's what makes me so angry about the entire thing. Our local children's shelter turns away children daily because they don't have the funding to operate at more than half capacity. The city's infrastructure desperately needs upgrading & repair due to the population boom over the last 10 yrs, but the city keeps saying they don't have the money to fix anything.
Yet they had the cash to waste on this to satisfy an out-of-state interest group that the mayor had an affinity for....and which I believe is going to led to yet another reduction in the tax base. Add to that the fact that 60-70% of restaurants were already smoke-free, which means most of the restaurant workers were already 'protected', and the exception for bars, which means that those workers still aren't 'protected', will lead you to the inevitable conclusion that the whole thing is just a ridiculous waste.
Posted by: Rita at February 13, 2004 07:19 AM