Colorado’s new statewide smoking ban holds.
Chief U.S. District Judge Lewis Babcock on Friday rejected arguments that the ban – which makes an exception for casinos, cigar bars, airport lounges and small businesses – violates tavern owner rights.
No worries at the City Grille, a bar and restaurant just east of the state Capitol.
“I kind of like it better this way. Most of us do. Business has been perfectly fine,” manager April Gooch, 27, said from a perch that isn’t so asphyxiating any more.
The ban eases a health burden on employees, she said. “It also helps people who do smoke not smoke as much.”
The Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act – which kicked in July 1 after lengthy legislative wrangling – aims to protect nonsmokers from ill effects of secondhand smoke.
A coalition of tavern and bowling-alley owners and others – led by Shari Warren of the Spirit Keeper Tavern, north of Colorado Springs in the Black Forest – has fought it since June. First they tried to block the ban from taking effect.
Their lawsuit argued that the exemptions for casinos and others violate equal protection rights. Bingo halls, for example, aren’t exempt.
But Colorado’s constitutionally created casinos – in mountain towns Cripple Creek, Black Hawk and Central City – generate millions in tax revenues.
Babcock ruled that Colorado’s government “had a reasonable basis” to make exceptions and could do so without violating equal protection rights. He pointed out that the well-being of casinos keeps the mountain towns alive.
As for Denver International Airport, Babcock said the “unique configuration” of a smoking lounge sufficiently protects nonsmokers.
Striking down the law “would amount to nothing more than substituting one personal view of the public good for that of the duly-elected state legislature” and “would breed disrespect for the rule of law and exacerbate cynicism toward the proper role of the judiciary,” Babcock wrote.
Mountain States Legal Foundation attorney Joe Becker, who represented bar owners, didn’t respond to requests for comment Friday.
Babcock “did the right thing. There’s a time and place for a policy debate, and the court is not it,” said Jason Dunn, deputy attorney general who argued the case for the state.
“This means the law is in place, and people need to comply with it,” he said.
The battle continues. A La Plata County judge has set a jury trial in November for Robert Orio, owner of Orio’s Roadhouse in Durango, who was ticketed in September for violating the smoking ban.
He and other bar owners contend obeying the ban costs them business. Orio has argued that because more than 5 percent of his earnings come from tobacco sales he should be exempt from the law.
