{"id":20,"date":"2010-12-02T17:56:43","date_gmt":"2010-12-02T17:56:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theloungeisback.wordpress.com\/?p=20"},"modified":"2010-12-02T17:56:43","modified_gmt":"2010-12-02T17:56:43","slug":"20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=20","title":{"rendered":"South Dakota approves smoking ban; the South remains the ashtray of the United States"},"content":{"rendered":"

First on the docket is a month-old story from South Dakota<\/a> (we gots some catching up to do). In South Dakota, the State Legislature passed a smoking ban a couple of years ago. Bar and casino owners passed around a petition to put the issue to a public vote. That petition went to court and it appeared would be overturned because it came out something like 13 valid signatures short.<\/p>\n

Well, the judge wasn’t going to stop the ballot measure over 13 lousy signatures, so he approved the ballot measure, putting the smoking ban on hold for a year. I’m not wild about any tobacco measure being put on the ballot because the industry has a history of defeating measures at the ballot box by pouring millions into state elections (Read: Oregon, California cigarette tax increases).<\/p>\n

On Nov. 2 (toldja I’m in catch-up mode), South Dakota voters approved the ballot measure with 64 percent of the vote, one of the widest margins I’ve ever seen. Similar measures in Ohio, Nevada and Arizona all passed with less than 60 percent of the vote. At least one restaurant <\/a>is already reporting that their business has gone up since the smoking ban went into effect.<\/p>\n

So, I haven’t checked this map in a while, but it now appears that 29 states have “strong” smoking bans (bars and restaurants), and 38 states have some form of smoking ban (at least restuarants.)<\/p>\n

This map is helpful. Even in those black states, most major cities have smoking bans. The last I checked, San Antonio, Texas, is the biggest city in the country with no smoking ban.<\/p>\n

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\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What do those black states mostly have in common? They are all Republican-controlled states. Republicans hate rules and regulations, except of course when it comes to gays and women wanting control over their own bodies.<\/p>\n

When I first started blogging about this, probably fewer than a dozen states had smoking bans. How far we’ve come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First on the docket is a month-old story from South Dakota (we gots some catching up to do). In South Dakota, the State Legislature passed a smoking ban a couple of years ago. Bar and casino owners passed around a petition to put the issue to a public vote. That petition went to court and … Continue reading South Dakota approves smoking ban; the South remains the ashtray of the United States<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[69],"tags":[174,176,179,191],"class_list":["post-20","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tobacco-2","tag-smoking","tag-smoking-bans","tag-south-dakota","tag-tobacco"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s4hpEa-20","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3881,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=3881","url_meta":{"origin":20,"position":0},"title":"Cigarette tax proposals in California, Missouri, West Virginia","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"May 22, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Good news, bad news on the cigarette tax front. First the good news: California Proponents of raising California's cigarette tax from 87 cents a pack to $2.87 a pack say they have nearly twice as many signatures as needed to qualify the measure for the November 2016 ballot. They were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "California"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=350"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/la-me-pol-sac-tom-steyer-tobacco-tax-20160516.jpg?fit=650%2C366&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/la-me-pol-sac-tom-steyer-tobacco-tax-20160516.jpg?fit=650%2C366&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/la-me-pol-sac-tom-steyer-tobacco-tax-20160516.jpg?fit=650%2C366&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3696,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=3696","url_meta":{"origin":20,"position":1},"title":"Another attempt being made to raise cigarette taxes in California","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"January 30, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"You might not believe this, but cigarette taxes in California are among the lowest in the entire U.S. California's cigarette tax is only 87 cents a pack, which is barely half of the average $1.50 a pack state tax in the U.S. \u00a0California has the 35th-highest state tobacco tax rate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "California"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=350"},"img":{"alt_text":"golden gate bridge","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/golden-gate-bridge.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":429,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=429","url_meta":{"origin":20,"position":2},"title":"Lance Armstrong campaigns for higher cigarette tax","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"March 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Anti-smoking and anti-cancer advocate Lance Armstrong now appears to be moving full-time into cancer advocacy. A couple of years ago, Lance campaigned pretty strongly for a smoking ban in Texas. He didn't win that round, but since he started speaking out, several large cities in Texas have imposed smoking bans,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anti-tobacco campaign"","block_context":{"text":"Anti-tobacco campaign","link":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/theloungeisback.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/03\/lance_armstrong1.jpg?w=350&h=200&crop=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1152,"url":"https:\/\/pepesnonsmokingpartytimelounge.com\/?p=1152","url_meta":{"origin":20,"position":3},"title":"Casper smoking ban battle — petition drive fails after hundreds of signatures thrown out","author":"Pepe Lepew","date":"August 2, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Casper, Wyoming a few months ago implemented a smoking ban for all restaurants and bars. 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