Protect Private Property Rights in Michigan proves what we knew all along...

Yep, that smoking bans greatly hurt the business of the few catering to smokers. And gosh, why would a dumb ALA lobbyist like Shelly Kiser give a crap if a very limited number of businesses want to cater to smokers. There already were a LOT of bars and restaurants that voluntarily went 100% no smoking indoors to cater to customer demand before Michigan's ban in May 2010, shouldn't that have been more than sufficient to the lunatic anti-smokers? Just feel bad it took me longer than I wanted to to repost this article here(found it on NKY Choice's facebook group), but better late than never.

I know in Indianapolis-Marion County(where a ban was passed exempting just businesses that are 18 and over at all hours of operation, and applies everywhere but like 3-4 independent communities within Marion County, IN, and at least 2 of them chose to pass bans that exempted bars), Save Indiana Bars(formerly Save Indianapolis Bars) already proved in a study that JUST 1% of all types of businesses throughout that county still allowed smoking, with many adult-only businesses banning it on their own in the last few years! Same thing has been occurring in the Northern Kentucky area(just south of Cincinnati), where NKY Choice found that over 2/3rds of restaurants and other businesses banned smoking on their own, WITHOUT any government-mandated ban necessary. That percentage must be closer to 75% by now, if NKY Choice hasn't already updated the study they posted on their site, and onto Twitter and Youtube. I need to check their site again, to see if they've done a new survey on this since. And for the record, Campbell County repealed a total ban their fiscal court passed, and Kenton's fiscal court only passed a partial ban exempting adult-only businesses, and 'split shift' businesses that allow smoking only during certain hours. It's too bad Kenton hasn't repealed their ban, since I know it greatly hurt the business of one bowling alley not too far away from Boone County and Florence, KY.

Naaa Naaa Naaa Naaa, Hey Hey Hey, Goodbye(to at least one Smoking Ban)

Just as my favorite AL baseball team(Chicago White Sox) always plays whenever an opposing starting pitcher is removed from the game, I figured the catchy title for this post is appropriate after I just caught this news slightly late. Boone County has finally pulled out of the talks for a regional smoking ban proposal in Northern Kentucky, joining Grant County(which includes both Dry Ridge and Williamstown, off of I-75 as you go south of both Boone and Kenton County towards Lexington) in saying no to any misguided regional smoking ban proposals. Looks like Campbell County Judge-Executive Steve Pendery, and soon-to-retire Kenton County Judge-Executive Ralph Drees will lose after all in their pathetic attempts to pass smoking bans for just their own county, even if not the whole NKY region.

Three cheers, and many more, to common sense getting at least one win over anti-smoking zealotry! Hopefully the city councils of Indianapolis(ahem, City-County Council of Indianapolis-Marion County) and San Antonio(both cities are where antis have been doing renewed pushes for citywide bans) will wake up and say no to bans, along with the several places I can think of where smoking ban referendums are already on the November 2010 ballot(San Angelo, TX, Jefferson City, MO, and the state of South Dakota).

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100730/NEWS0103/307300081/Boone-pulls-out-of-smoking-ban-talks

a newspaper editorial calls for NKY Action and ban supporters to release the NKY ban draft proposal

The first article was written yesterday by blogger Paul McKibben, and the 2nd article was an editorial written today from the North Kentucky Enquirer calling for the latest draft of the 3-county NKY ban proposal to be made public immediately. I 100% support the call for it to be made public, not to mention hiding the proposal(except for ban proponents seeing the proposal) is a total violation of both Kentucky's open meetings law, and also their public records law. The editorial also makes a great mention of the fact when 2 competing proposals were put on the ballot in summer 2006 for the November 2006 Ohio statewide election, both state smoking ban proposals were made public before being put on the ballot.

Paul McKibben's blog entry mentioning the appalling secrecy of the draft proposal:
http://nky.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=blog25&plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&U=c7553bdc-919b-42b9-9011-baf9c96f7123&plckPostId=Blog%3ac7553bdc-919b-42b9-9011-baf9c96f7123Post%3a2407caee-2261-4960-a699-8e79644447b4&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest

North Kentucky Enquirer's editorial calling for the draft to be publicly released:
http://nky.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20100719/EDIT01/7200358/Ky-smoking-ban-ordinance-clouded-in-secrecy