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Bars get burned by ban

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By Barb Ickes | Saturday, July 05, 2008 |

For sale: Iowa lawmakers. Oops! Too late. They’ve already been sold.

Iowa legislators showed us what power can buy when they voted to exclude the state’s 17 casinos from the smoking ban that’s effective today. By giving the casinos a pass, lawmakers made several unfortunate proclamations.

For starters, they declared that Iowa bar owners do not have the same rights as millionaire casino operators. Ensuring that the gaming industry stays fat is a legislative priority. Mom and pop can sink or swim.

What other message could tavern owners possibly take from the smoking ban? The state has given them their orders: Take away the ashtrays on your privately owned property or else.

The casinos were delivered an entirely different message: Smoke ’em if you’ve got ’em.

How is that fair?

If the Smoke-free Air Act sincerely is about public and employee health and the dangers of secondhand smoke, why exclude casino patrons and employees? Doesn’t their health count?

When Gov. Chet Culver signed the smoking ban, he remarked, “The bottom line is that this bill will save lives, plain and simple.”

What he should have said is, “The bottom line is that this bill will save lives, except in casinos, which will be even smokier because they’ll be the last public places where it’s permitted.”

Imagine: It’s the dead of winter, and you’re sick of sitting around the house. You’d like to go out and have a cocktail and a smoke. Normally, of course, you would go to the neighborhood bar. But you can’t smoke there. Your only alternative is the Rhythm City Casino or Isle of Capri.

Cha-ching! The casinos win again.

The thing about a smoking ban is that it has to be across-the-board in order for it to work. It has to be everyone or no one. That was the problem with giving bar and restaurant owners the right to decide whether to permit smoking on their own property — too many of them were afraid a ban would drive their customers away.

It was a legitimate concern.

I’d rather confess to a crime than admit this, but I still smoke. Even so, I appreciate the smoking ban in Illinois. In the six months since lighting up was barred in the bars, I have made far fewer after-work stops.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve thought about popping in here or there but decided to go on home after thinking it over. I know me. If I’m going to have a beer, I’m going to crave a cigarette.

So, I spend less money. Good for me, bad for the bars. When I do go out, though, I smoke a whole lot less than I did before the ban. Good for me and the bars.

The Iowa Legislature is being entirely unfair to them, but it’s not the end of the world for Iowa bar owners. In fact, it’s a fresh start, beginning with the smell.

It’s amazing how much more appealing a place becomes, minus the yuck of smoke, ash and nicotine.

But the exemption still stinks.

Barb Ickes can be contacted at

(563) 383-2316 or bickes@qctimes.com. Comment on this column at qctimes.com.