Facebook
Fark
Digg
Reddit
StumbleSenate proceeding with smoking ban hearing despite lawsuit
Bill would permit smoking in certain bars and businesses
Thursday, April 2, 2009 | 6:40 p.m.
Reader poll
Senate Bill
Beyond the Sun
Sun Archives
- Ease on smoking ban among 100-plus new measures (3-23-2009)
Sun coverage
CARSON CITY – A Senate committee intends to go forward with a hearing Friday on a bill to loosen Nevada’s Clean Indoor Air Act despite a lawsuit to stop the Legislature from considering the bill.
Sen. Terry Care, D-Las Vegas, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he will hold the hearing unless “advised otherwise.”
And it has been revealed that Kendall Stagg, who filed the suit in the Nevada Supreme Court, still owes the state several thousand dollars on a fine imposed on him for filing a late campaign finance report when he ran for Reno City Council in 2002.
Records in the Secretary of State's Office show Stagg was six months late filing his campaign report and a $5,000 fine was imposed. He failed to pay and the State Attorney General's Office filed suit. A district judge in May 2008 found Stagg owed the money but reduced the amount to $3,500, including penalties and costs.
Stagg, who lists his address as Queens, N.Y., submitted the first payment of $630 on Feb. 10 this year.
Care said this is a petition to stop the hearing and he received the suit today. He said it’s up to the Nevada Supreme Court to decide if a reply is necessary.
Stagg could not be reached for comment.
The suit is aimed at stopping the Legislature from considering Senate Bill 372, which would permit smoking in some businesses, bars and at certain conventions or trade shows.
Voters in 2006 approved the clean air act 310,524 to 265,375. Stagg was policy manager for the Nevada Tobacco Prevention Coalition, which was one of a number of groups that supported the clean air act to prevent smoking in a number of cases.
Stagg says the Legislature now seeks to violate the Nevada Constitution by trying to amend the law. The Constitution, says the suit, prohibits an initiative petition approved by the voters “shall not be amended, annulled, repealed, set aside or suspended by the Legislature within three years from the date it takes effect.”
The bill violates that mandate, said Stagg, a former candidate for Reno City Council and the Assembly.
But the bill introduced by the Senate Judiciary Committee would not become effective until December this year, or three years passed the approval by the voters.
The bill would permit smoking in places of employment if there is an enclosed area with a separate method of ventilation. It would permit smoking at conventions or trade shows that are not open to the public and are being organized by a tobacco association or a professional association of convenience stores and involves the display of tobacco products.
It would permit smoking in adult standalone bars, taverns or saloons with gambling licenses and that prohibit those under 21 years old from entering.
And it would repeal a section of the law that authorizes local governments to enact stiffer prohibitions against smoking. Local authorities would be prohibited from enforcing the clean air act.
Earlier this week, John Packham, director of health policy of research at the University of Nevada School of Medicine, wrote that this Senate bill would “essentially dismantle the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act.”
In a column in the Reno Gazette-Journal, Packham wrote that passages of this bill would “set back tobacco control and prevention by at least two decades.” For instance, he said it would permit smoking in places such as grocery stores and restaurants if there was a separate area.
Cy Ryan may be reached at (775) 687 5032 or cy@lasvegassun.com.
Discussion: comments so far…
Comments are moderated by Las Vegas Sun editors. Our goal is not to limit the discussion, but rather to elevate it. Comments should be relevant and contain no abusive language. Comments that are off-topic, vulgar, profane or include personal attacks will be removed. Full comments policy. Additionally, we now display comments from trusted commenters by default. Those wishing to become a trusted commenter need to verify their identity or sign in with Facebook Connect to tie their Facebook account to their Las Vegas Sun account. For more on this change, read our story about how it works and why we did it.
Only trusted comments are displayed on this page. Untrusted comments have expired from this story.
No trusted comments have been posted.
Post a comment
Most Popular
- Viewed
- Discussed
- E-mailed
Everything Under the Sun
Blogs
The Kats Report
Joe Pesci remembers his own honeymoon in Vegas -- meeting the Rat Pack (1 Comment)
Las Vegas Philharmonic says search for new music director to begin 'immediately' (1 Comment)
With Shenandoah project stalled, Wayne Newton hits back legally (7 Comments)
Where does a Playmate play when she turns 21? Vegas! (3 Comments)
Ice Ice Billy
The road to six-toed cats and Mayor Bubba
The Kats Report
David Itkin tells L.V. Philharmonic officials he's on his way out (14 Comments)
Diamond Dave sells it well as Van Halen pours out the power at MGM Grand (2 Comments)
- Locally owned and independent since 1950; Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, best news website in the nation & DuPont Award for broadcast journalism
Mr. Stagg is a career crusader against the tobacco industry, an advocate of raising taxes upon the poor while instituting destructive laws upon business communities.
Kendall Stagg is no friend of Nevadans.
So now that my friends who are asthmatics, or who have heart disease or emphyzema can go into grocery stores, restaurants, etc. without risking their health, government wants to deliberately expose them to poisonous air again?
Personally, as a 3-year cancer survivor, I can't believe government wants to take the role as the cancer giver!
Stagg is a hero. Smokers are sick and useless drags on society.
Stagg is right. I read the lawsuit he filed against the state legislature. He is not an attorney and yet his pleading is articulate and makes the case for his argument that the law, as it stands, FORBIDS any type of amending for three years. The three years is not up until December 2009. It is the smoking proponents bad luck that Nevada legislatures only meet every two years, they will just have to wait until next legislature, but this will only happen if the court is brave enough to uphold the existing act which forbids amendments and thus holds that the hearings should be cancelled.
Stevie, Nick -- You miss the point entirely.
volvomom -- that's a strange way to lobby the legislature, which is really not a candidate for a lawsuit, for several reasons, like immunity, and there's no law to stop.
Wait until government decides something new to tell you what you have to do on your own property. Overweight? Grass too long? Got a dog?
Secondhand smoke/ETS danger is largely a hoax. For enlightenment here's some recommended background:
"The Second-Hand Smoke Charade" by Dominick T. Armentano, September 28, 1998. www.cato.org/dailys/9-28-98.html
Bottom line: "...people have a right to avoid exposure to secondhand smoke, no matter what studies show. But they don't have the right to force everyone else to live according to their preference." -- "Please Do Smoke, If You Like" www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9108...
you know it is dog gone funny how the media folks will never tell who is sponsering a bill but will almost always tell who is against it.