House exempts bars, restaurants, casinos from ban

Associated Press - March 12, 2008 6:14 PM ET

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - The Iowa House has narrowly approved a smoking ban that would exclude casinos, bars and restaurants with a liquor license. The vote reverses a broader version of the bill approved earlier this month.

It's a major setback for health advocates who argued about the risks of secondhand smoke. Business owners have lobbied against the bill, saying they would be hurt by the ban.

The issue must now be resolved through negotiations with the Senate, which passed a tougher version of the ban.

Current law requires restaurants above a certain size to designate an area for nonsmoking customers. The measure approved today would overturn that and allow restaurants and bars to decide for themselves whether to allow smoking.

 

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Ummmmm.....  

I would think that this version would be the more intelligent version of the law.  Then let the bars and food joints make up their own minds.  Muscatine has obviously been doing that for years. 

In the face of seemingly overwhelming opposition, I'm going to disagree with this bill. Reversing the segregation part is only the first bad move - the rest if exempting ANYWHERE. Smoking is bad and it has been proven that secondhand smoke causes all sorts of health problems. I, a nonsmoker, should under no conditions have to endure you're smoke. You argue about freedom, but I also have the right to freedom, the right to clean air, the right to breathe oxygen without over four hundred chemicals mixed in.

We should ban smoking in all public places .