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Is Obama grabbing yet another look at a woman bending over?

Hub bar and restaurant owners are burning up over the city’s sudden crackdown on puffing patrons on rooftop decks or in sidewalk cafes as part of the city’s tough new workplace smoking rules. “We used to have a patio full of people, smokers and others who don’t smoke but are socializing with them,” said George Lewis, owner of The Foundation Lounge at the Hotel Commonwealth in Kenmore Square. “Now it’s empty.” Lewis is among a group of tavern owners considering challenging the new smoking restriction in court. They fear the ban, coupled with an increased meals tax, will scare away...

Marshalltown police said one of the employees caught Suzanne Marie Butts, of Marshalltown, taking the two-ply from the women's bathroom and called police. "I've heard they call it the toilet paper caper," said parking lot attendant Gene Seim. she was hiding the toilet paper in her shirt.

Marshalltown, Iowa (AP) -- Police blame a woman named Butts for stealing toilet paper from a central Iowa courthouse, and while they're chuckling, the theft charge could put her in prison. "She's facing potentially three years of incarceration for three rolls of toilet paper," Chief Lon Walker said, stifling a laugh as he talked to KCCI-TV about Suzanne Marie Butts. "See, I can't say it with a straight face." Workers had noticed the rolls disappearing from the Marshall County Courthouse much faster than usual, Walker said. Butts, 38, was caught last week after an employee saw her taking three rolls...

Can Butts, Obama, Dybul and Rick Warren Save the World? By Brannon Howse Rick Warren’s conference is this coming Friday, December 1st, 2006 at his church. To this day, I don’t have a clue what Pastor Warren thinks can be accomplished by gathering together a group of non-believers that are hostile to Christianity to discuss the world’s problems. Promotion of a social gospel will not save one soul. As you know by now, Rick has invited United States Senator Barack Obama to speak at his church conference. Senator Obama is described by many as left of Hillary Clinton. Now that...

GRAND RAPIDS -- Spectrum Health and Saint Mary's Health Care will require all their employees to not use tobacco at any time during their work shift beginning January 1. The staffs of both hospitals will need to arrive without smelling of smoke, and they can't use any tobacco products until they leave hospital property after their shift. Metro Health is also joining in the Smoke-Free Work Day Every Day campaign. In 2003, the Grand Rapids hospitals became the first in the country to jointly declare their hospital campuses smoke-free. Today, more than 30 Michigan hospitals have smoke-free campuses. This...

SEATTLE -- Non-tribal casinos have already lost tens of millions of dollars because of Washington’s new indoor smoking ban. A new financial study, conducted by our own KIRO Team 7 Investigators, discovers taxpayers could loose millions as well. Card-rooms, charity bingo halls, and some bars and restaurants are required to report financial information to the state every year. The state hasn't had a chance to look at the figures since the smoking ban took effect. I have. It looks like "no smoking" means economic devastation for the non-tribal gaming industry. If there was ever any doubt that gamblers are also...

Following are actual statistics reflecting examples of the negative impact upon individual businesses following the recently instituted smoking ban ordinances, effective in Springfield, Illinois and surrounding unincorporated Sangamon County this September 15, 2006 (less than two weeks ago). When small businesses account for about two-thirds of our country's economic growth and new jobs, it is difficult to comprehend elected officials' reasoning in voting to implement an intrusive ordinance which will hurt those same business owners. A restaurant owner who does not permit smoking will see it as a violation of his property rights if a coalition uses the political...

Delaware County's ban on smoking in most work places has become a problem for some nursing homes, which are both work places for employees and homes for the residents. The smoking ordinance does not prevent people from smoking in their homes, but it does ban smoking in most public buildings and work spaces. If a nursing home bans smoking, they could lose federal funding for failing to comply with regulations, but if they allow smoking they could face fines or a lawsuit from the county health department, officials said. Federal regulations state that if a nursing home changes its...

Churchill Downs could be hurt financially if it is forced to go completely smoke free, a company official said Wednesday. Kevin Flanery, Churchill Downs Inc.’s vice president for national public affairs, told a Louisville Metro Council committee considering a new, tougher smoking ban, that the race track is already facing heavy competition from Indiana and from computer and telephone betting services.And he said the company’s experience at a Florida track shows some people will stop betting when a smoking ban takes effect. But the former head of the Greater Louisville Medical Society testified that his group favors a complete...

A private smokers club in Smiths Falls challenged Ontario's indoor smoking ban with its grand opening Friday — and Ontario officials did not brave the fumes to attend. Instead, the club's founder was charged under the province's Smoke-Free Ontario act the day before it opened. Since Ontario's indoor workplace and public smoking ban went into effect, ashtrays and cigars have been illegal in bars. The grand opening of Do' Little's pub as a club for members of a private smokers association took place at noon at the Comfort Inn on Centre Street in Smiths Falls, about 65 kilometres south of...

Park Ridge aldermen will resume discussion of the city's public smoking ban, following complaints from three restaurant owners that their businesses have been adversely affected by it.The restaurant owners spoke briefly to the City Council Monday night, prompting Mayor Howard Frimark to ask the aldermen if the smoking ban should be brought back before the Procedures and Regulations Committee. Alderman Jeannie Markech agreed that it should, and made a motion for the discussion. Eight aldermen voted in favor of the issue going back to committee and five voted against. One alderman was absent.The next meeting of the Procedures and Regulations...

There have been a bunch of books about the mistakes made after the American invasion of Baghdad, George Packer's Assassin's Gate and Thomas Ricks' Fiasco being the two best in my opinion.Yesterday, the Washington Post published an excerpt from Rajiv Chandrasekaran's effort. He was their bureau chief there for a few years and his book, Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone, will be released tomorrow.I haven't read the book, but the excerpt is as damning as anything could be. It outlines how people were recruited to serve in the Coalition Provisional Authority, the group that ran...

Jobs are being eliminated by special interest activist organizations Now that air quality test results by the likes of the American Cancer Society are proving that the secondhand smoke kills argument is completely fabricated. http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2004/04/american-cancer-society-test-results.html It's time for lawmakers to investigate why this fallacy has permeated the local government debate.....and specifically who is funding and spreading that false information. http://www.rwjf.org/about/founder.jhtml The "who" is in large part the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. And since RWJF is an affiliate of the Johnson & Johnson Company (the manufacturer of competing nicotine product interests Nicoderm & Nicoderm CQ), it stands to reason that the...

Robin Brayman, a 44-year-old Greenfield resident, thought she had saved quite a bit of money buying cigarettes online, until she received a bill from the state demanding more than $2,000 in unpaid sales and cigarette taxes. "I had no idea. When I first started buying, the Web site said the cigarettes were tax-free, duty-free. You assumed you didn't have to pay anything," Brayman said. Brayman, like many other smokers, purchases cigarettes online because they are offered at a deep discount. A carton of Marlboro Full Flavor 100s costs $29.45 plus shipping from BuyCheapCigarettes.com, the site Brayman patronized. The same...

ROCKTON -- Rockton leaders snuff out an idea to ban smoking at public places. Tuesday night at their meeting, a motion to draft an ordinance banning smoking in public places failed to get anywhere. Rockton Village Trustee Dennis Meade put the issue before board members, but no one seconded the motion. The proposal would've kept people from lighting up on streets, sidewalks, parks and in businesses. Several community members including business owners spoke out at the meeting against a ban saying it would hurt their business. Others claimed it a ban would go against their rights. One person at...

The mother of deceased Ground Zero worker James Zadroga described Mayor Bloomberg as a "cold, heartless person" for opposing a series of new laws that address the health battles of 9/11 rescuers."I don't think he realizes how the common people live - maybe for one month he should try and live on $500 a week," Linda Zadroga wrote in a letter to the Daily News. "But when [you're] a billionaire, you have no concept of the so-called middle class. Well, one day he may have some tragedy in his family he will need to deal with, and then maybe...

NON-SMOKERS are being banned from drinking in outdoor smoking areas in pubs and clubs under draconian council rules. Some councils are forcing licensed venues to hire bouncers to enforce the bans, costing tens of thousands of dollars a year, while preventing non-smokers from using outdoor areas. It has raised concerns about discrimination against non-smokers and suggestions that councils are going beyond the State Government's legislation and imposing their own rules. The Daily Telegraph has learned that at least two councils – Fairfield and North Sydney – have already employed the tactic when approving development applications from premises wishing to...

Senator Susan Collins introduced legislation on Aug. 3 to help crack down on illegal sales of tobacco to children by banning the shipment of cigarettes and other tobacco products through the U.S. mail. Specifically, the bill would add cigarettes and smokeless tobacco to the U.S. Postal Service's list of restricted, non-mailable products. A first violation of mailing such a product would be liable for a civil penalty of up to $5,000 or 10 times the estimated retail value of the tobacco products, including all federal, state, and local taxes, whichever is highest. Civil penalties of up to $100,000 would...

WASHINGTON -- Quietly leaving his post as surgeon general, Dr. Richard Carmona said he would judge himself successful if he had persuaded one student to make good health choices or one mother to stop smoking. Carmona's report condemning secondhand smoke was a hallmark of his tenure as the nation's 17th surgeon general.

The issue is no longer just about smoking. Passing a state law outlawing smoking in most public places was, by this comparison, the easiest thing to do. The law was not required to address the inevitable hardships such a bill was destined to inflict. There was clapping and backslapping on the floor of the state Senate the afternoon it passed there. But none of that really matters now, when the issue is one of how it impacts people's lives. They are men and women who once ran tiny, yet prosperous, packed-to- the-kegs establishments, who now tend mostly empty bars. The...

They're making one last attempt to force the City of Beaumont to continue to allow smoking in bars and restaurants. Opponents of a ban on smoking in public buildings say they don't have enough signatures right now, but they plan to work hard in the next 24 hours getting the support they need. Lee Melton/Comedy, Texas "I own a business and pay a lot of Taxes and now I can't smoke in my own building." Smoking ban opponents say they are not quitting when it comes to getting enough signatures on this petition. Lee Melton/Comedy, Texas "Four ladies on...

Revenue from video lottery terminals in New Brunswick declined last year, in part because of the province's ban on smoking in bars and restaurants, the Atlantic Lottery Corporation says.The lottery corportation's 2005-06 annual report shows that money generated by VLTs fell by almost $8 million, or six per cent, from the previous year.ALC spokesman Robert Bourgeois said a province-wide smoking ban imposed in October 2004 was one of the major reasons for the decline."There were other factors as well, such an increase in competition from unregulated internet sites," Bourgeois said Friday. "But definitely, the smoking ban would have been one of the factors."The...

Nearly 300 union workers will be laid off by Casino Windsor due to declining revenues caused by Ontario's new smoking ban, casino officials said Wednesday. The casino, which has nearly 4,000 employees, will lose 297 union workers over the next two weeks and immediately terminate 32 salaried employees, officials said, who also cited an unfavorable exchange rate and high gas prices for the decrease. The law, which went into effect May 31, bans smoking in all public facilities, including bingo halls, bars, restaurants, sporting venues, stores, office buildings and Casino Windsor. "This is a day that no one takes...

Poor Heather Crowe, the Ottawa waitress who recently died of lung cancer and had lent her persona to the anti-smoking lobby as the typical victim du jour. Crowe was said to be a "typical" restaurant worker who spent 40 years working in Ottawa restaurants, all the while breathing the second-hand smoke that’s said to have claimed her life.There are so many things wrong with Heather Crowe’s case that it begs for an official inquiry, but like all politically correct causes the anti-smoking lobby can do no wrong. Crowe, who really did die of lung cancer, was anything but a typical...

Concerned Women for America (CWA) says that if the Marriott hotels care so much about their customers, as indicated in their recent decision to ban smoking from hotel rooms, they should stop offering hard-core porn in their hotel rooms. “Creating a smoke-free environment demonstrates a new level of service and care for our guests and associates,” said J.W. Marriott Jr., chairman and chief executive officer of Marriott International. “Our family of brands is united on this important health issue and we anticipate very positive customer feedback. … Demand for nonsmoking rooms continues to rise with new information from the...

Cops in North Platte won’t be busting anyone for exposing children to secondhand smoke in motor vehicles.Lincoln County Attorney Jeff Meyer says he personally doesn’t like the idea of smoking around children, but it is not barred by law and doesn’t qualify as child abuse. Police Chief Martin Gutschenritter sought the county attorney’s advice based on a recent national study, reporting on the danger of secondhand tobacco smoke. Gutschenritter wanted to know if police could ticket people, who smoke when children are in their vehicles, for child abuse. ”Generally, acts that are not specifically proscribed against by statute do not...

The Pennsylvania Restaurant Association has thrown its support behind a statewide ban on smoking in restaurants, bars, casinos and private clubs. So why couldn't we find any local establishments who agree with them? Admittedly, we used a small sample, but when staff writer Jeff Pikulsky talked to owners of Mon Valley clubs and restaurants last week, he found angry opposition to the proposed ban. Monessen Elks Club Steward Marcy Zites estimated that 70 percent of her club patrons smoke and feared that a ban would be bad for business. Those sentiments were echoed at the Foster House in North...

The Surgeon General showed up very regal looking to provide a press release rehashing the tired old argument that secondhand smoke is deadly and must be banned. And with his next statement: Separate "no smoking" sections DO NOT protect you from secondhand smoke. Neither does filtering the air or opening a window. It seemed a feable attempt to pre-empt any action short of a total smoking ban.....as if to confirm that pro-smoking ban activists' credibility in the public is failing miserably. Well I am sorry to report that the American Cancer Society conducted air quality testing at several smoking...

If President Bush announced that secondhand smoke kills more Americans than the Iraqi insurgency, AIDS, drunken drivers and Katrina put together, would we nod in agreement — or look to Bellevue, if not to impeachment? Comes now Richard Carmona, the surgeon general of the United States, telling us that secondhand smoke kills 49,000 Americans a year — and there's no outcry, no notion that maybe this is nuts. Instead, the mass media buys it without question, and so apparently do the people.Does anybody out there know anything about Carmona, or even that he's the surgeon general? In 2003, he...

Everyone knows the traditional reasons why Maine is a great place to take a vacation - it has ocean, mountains, lakes and lobsters.Now the state is promoting one more inducement for people to visit: No smoking is allowed in Maine's public buildings.The state is putting up five signs at various points this week along the Maine Turnpike and Interstate 95 that advertise the fact."Breathe easy, you're in Maine," said the blue signs with white lettering. "All indoor public places are smoke-free."Dr. Dora Anne Mills, who heads the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said Maine may be "the...

First they came for the workplace, then for people's homes and cars, and then the great outdoors.Now the anti-tobacco jihadists, having helped ban smoking in most public and many private places, have turned their attention to the most private space of all — the womb.  That very personal place where humans incubate could be the next battlefield between smokers and those who have never uttered the words: “It's none of my beeswax.” This latest brainstorm comes from Arkansas, where Rep. Bob Mathis successfully shepherded legislation making it unlawful to smoke in cars in which small children are passengers. Apparently...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - A trade group that represents liquor retailers is mounting a legal challenge to Springfield's new indoor smoking ban for public places. The Illinois Licensed Beverage Association filed a lawsuit in Sangamon County Circuit Court Wednesday, seeking an injunction to prevent the ban from taking effect Sept. 17 in all indoor workplaces. The association has also asked the court to nullify the sections of Springfield's Clean Indoor Air Ordinance that apply to bowling alleys and taverns, saying state law does not give the city the authority to include such establishments in its definition of "public places." "We have...

Psst! Hey kid! Come over here and jump off this bridge! All the cool kids've done it 'n you're the only one left! It won't hurt, it'll be fun. Anyhow, if ya don't do it, I'm gonna come back 'n bugya, 'n bugya, 'n bugya forever till ya do. With that sort of reasoned discourse in the background, accompanied by taunts of "You smell like an ASHTRAY!", Philadelphia finally jumped on the bandwagon and banned smoking. Well, sorta. They banned it unless you're a bar that agrees not to feed its customers anything healthy, one that's well-off enough to have...

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — Saturday marks the one-year anniversary of Steamboat Springs' controversial municipal smoking ban, but local businesses that once catered to the smoker's dollar have no reason to celebrate.  Mike Miller, owner of Sun�--pie's Bistro, thinks the city's ordinance goes too far, banning smoking anywhere within the restaurant or bar's liquor license boundaries. "It's almost impossible to enforce," Miller said about enforcing a ban that encompasses Sunpie's entire 5,000-square-foot outdoor seating area along the Yampa River. "You can be 150 feet from being indoors, and you're not allowed to smoke. You can inform customers of the law and...

A German businessman has founded an airline dedicated to smokers.Smintair, or Smokers' International Airways, aims to cater for smokers who feel excluded in an age when all major airlines have banned the habit.A Dusseldorf-Tokyo service is due to begin in October and is expected to serve mainly Japanese businessmen.Smintair's founder, Alexander Schoppmann, a 30-a-day man, said: "There are no laws banning smoking on board. The airlines have made these rules themselves because no-smoking planes are cheaper. It means you don't have to change the air filter system so regularly."

While some say the introduction of the statewide smoking ban next Saturday will level the playing field, a group of restaurants and bar owners are fuming over what they say are unfair exemptions.Smokers who travel to Colorado’s casinos and Denver International Airport will be able to light up.Puffing on a Basic Ultra Light last week over a game of bingo at Loveland Elks Lodge 1051, Frank Bustos said the law is unfair. “They shouldn’t hold the bar and pool hall owners back,” said Bustos, who has been a smoker for 53 of his 65 years. “Bars are traditionally a...

The state moved to expand its pursuit of tax dollars from smokers who buy cigarettes over the Internet. The Department of Revenue — at a cost of $88,000 — sent tax bills late last year to 7,500 smokers who bought cigarettes online without paying Oregon’s tax of $1.18 a pack. Roughly 33 percent of the people who received letters paid their taxes, generating $686,000. On Thursday, a subcommittee of the Legislative Emergency Board gave preliminary approval to the Department of Revenue to spend another $240,000 to send letters to people listed on another 23,000 invoices. The full Emergency Board,...

MONROE TWP. -- About a half dozen American Legion members sat around an old picnic table behind Post 252 Friday, despite the humid heat. Inside, the air conditioner was keeping the bar cool -- but out here, they can smoke. Thanks to new state legislation prohibiting smoking in all public places but casinos, this American Legion post lost approximately $5,000 in bar income during the month of May, said Commander Joe Reed. The post has a gaming license that allows them to operate a couple of Pull-Tab gambling machines, and the income from them is down about the same...

The owners of Batavia Downs say they are going to move ahead with plans to put 50 video lottery terminals (VLTs) in a new smoking room. Right now, Batavia Downs does have a room where patrons can legally smoke. That room has 18 VLTs. The plan is to create a larger room with fifty terminals, because those “smoking” terminals get twice the play of others at the track. The project still needs approval from state lottery officials.

ST. CLOUD -- What seemed to many like a good idea several years ago has gone up in smoke. St. Cloud's ban on hiring employees who use tobacco, which was enacted in 2002, has been revoked by the City Council. "Number one, it never did do what it was supposed to do -- help on insurance," City Manager Tom Hurt said. "And it put a cramp on hiring." With more jobs to fill as the city grows, there was a shrinking pool of workers to fill the jobs. Osceola's unemployment rate for the 12 months ending in April was...

AUGUSTA - Maine's attorney general called for congressional action Monday after the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals last week upheld a ruling that invalidated a significant portion of a 2003 state law aimed at preventing youth access to tobacco from Internet and mail-order sales. A three-judge panel of the appellate court in Boston on Friday agreed with a federal judge in Maine and ruled that Maine's law interfered with timely delivery procedures by private delivery firms such as United Parcel Service. Attorney General Steven Rowe is considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, his spokesman Chuck Dow said...

BANGOR - A majority of Maine residents - 79 percent - are nonsmokers, a statistic provided by the Smoke-Free Coalition of Maine on Thursday to local policy-makers, tenants and landlords to get them involved in making their public and private housing facilities smoke-free. The coalition's conference, attended by nearly 50 people, was designed to reduce the involuntary exposure of tenants to secondhand smoke, which can seep through ventilation systems, walls and electrical outlets. The coalition hosted a similar conference on Wednesday in Portland. Twenty-eight percent of Maine's housing is renter occupied, Jim Bergman, keynote speaker and co-director of Smoke-Free...

As a physician who has devoted 21 years to advocacy in tobacco control, conducting research and publishing a number of studies on the hazards of secondhand smoke, it is not surprising that I favor a wide range of anti-smoking measures. But anti-smoking tactics adopted by some municipalities, companies and organizations do not serve smokers or the public. The methods are mean-spirited, unsupported by science and attempt to stamp out smoking by punishing and marginalizing smokers. They go too far. The City Council in Calabasas, Calif., recently enacted an ordinance - supported by several anti-smoking groups - that bans smoking in...

That big cloud of smoke you see leading out of Champaign-Urbana could be the trail of smokers driving to restaurants, bars and bowling alleys in neighboring communities.City and village leaders in Gibson City, Gifford, Mahomet, Monticello, Paxton, Philo, Rantoul, Savoy, St. Joseph, Tolono and Villa Grove all say they have no plans to follow Champaign's lead in passing a comprehensive smoking ban, which will be effective Aug. 1 if Urbana approves a similar ordinance in the next several weeks.Meanwhile, business owners in the surrounding communities say Champaign-Urbana smokers will be welcome there. They anticipate increased sales from C-U smokers looking...

This comes after we showed you video on Thursday night of elderly and disabled residents, risking their lives, shuffling across a busy street. On the other side was the new designated smoking area. Investigative Reporter Chris Halsne discovers our video has revved-up interest in scaling back the state's tough smoking ban. Our new law clearly says you can smoke inside your residence, but there is not an exemption for people residing at assisted living centers. As our cameras found out, that means smokers, already in poor health, may have to brave dangerous conditions to light up. Some legislators say that...

A group of elderly and disabled cigarette lovers say Washington's smoking ban has become extremely hazardous to their health. Investigative Reporter Chris Halsne found them dodging traffic in wheelchairs and walkers. Folks are starting to get used to seeing "no-smoking" signs at bars, restaurants and public buildings. But, what happens when a nursing home bans smoking without making any accommodations for residents? Crossing the street in front of the Bremerton Health and Rehabilitation Center is not for the faint of heart, but that's exactly where we found the faint of heart traveling. No matter their disability, if residents like...

HONOLULU -- Hawaii lawmakers have approved one of the strictest smoking bans in the country. The bill prohibits smoking in almost every public space. The governor is expected to approve the bill. She is a former smoker herself and has always been openly in favor of legislation to encourage smokers to give it up and to protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke. The bill prohibits smoking in all public places including: bars, restaurants -- even open air restaurants -- office buildings and any place workers would be affected by smoke. "I think this is a huge step forward for public health...

Milwaukee's proposed smoking ban is smoldering in a Common Council committee and not likely to go anywhere.Last month Alderman Terry Witkowski, who represents the 13th Aldermanic District, suggested any action on the proposed ban be held at the Common Council's Public Safety March 2 committee hearing. No action will be taken until the committee's chair, Alderman Bob Donovan of the Eighth Aldermanic District, schedules it for a meeting.Donovan said he does not plan on bringing the issue up again because he is opposed to the ordinance. "I think it's an individual choice issue, a business choice issue and I don't...

BATON ROUGE (AP) — Louisiana restaurant patrons who want an after-dinner smoke should be forced to leave the dining room before lighting up, the full Senate decided today. Senators approved Sen. Rob Marionneaux’s plan to prohibit smoking in all restaurants’ dining areas but allow smoking in bars and casinos, cigar shops, and hotel and motel rooms. Marionneaux cited several polls conducted by anti-smoking groups showing that a majority of residents in Louisiana’s cities support such a ban. “Let’s afford our citizens the right to have dinner with their families without the bother of second-hand smoke,” said Marionneaux, D-Livonia. The...