After causing the financial ruin and closure of 400+ small businesses and eliminating approximately 10,000 hospitality jobs, lawmakers pass an amendment to help stop the economic hemorrhaging........But it is far too little too late.
A good first step would be to exempt any establishment with a liquor license from the smoking ban, which is what South Dakota lawmakers did several years ago. And now that Wisconsin lawmakers have again abandoned their anti-business smoking ban attempt......Minnesota lawmakers are left alone twisting in the "clean, customer-free, air", apparently the last gullible upper midwest state to believe the Nicoderm (RWJF) funded lie "....smoking bans are good for business...."
And it bears repeating that air quality test results by Johns Hopkins University, the American Cancer Society, a Minnesota Environmental Health Department, and various researchers whose testing and report was peer reviewed and published in the esteemed British Medical Journal......prove that secondhand smoke is 2.6 - 25,000 times SAFER than occupational (OSHA) workplace regulations:
http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2010/09/new-st-louis-aq-study-published-by.html
http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2007/11/johns-hopkins-air-quality-testing-of.html
http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2007/04/bmj-published-air-quality-test-results.html
http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2004/04/american-cancer-society-test-results.html
http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2006/02/air-quality-testing-and-secondhand.html
http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2008/03/british-medical-journal-who-conclude.html
All nullify the argument that secondhnad smoke is a workplace health hazard.
For more local reaction see Channel 12's interview with Duffy's Bar & Grill owner, Martin Duffy regarding the proposed legislative amendment.