A Little More News on the Michigan (Bingo) Smoking Ban
To our knowledge, no official guidelines for the ban on smoking have yet been written. However, we are hearing from our insiders in Lansing that “outdoor ‘smoking tents’ or some outside structure will be ALLOWED if it is not fully enclosed, some distance from the bingo/gaming facility, and is in compliance with the local municipal smoke-free regulations. Some of the local regulations require a distance of 10 to 20 feet from the facility. Therefore the bingo/gaming operators (i.e. your bingo hall) will have to check with their respective county/city or township on their ‘smoke-free’ requirements.” For more information on local restrictions in Michigan and neighboring states, you can visit www.tcsg.org/sfelp/home.htm . We also urge you to contact your local county/city or township directly.
Despite not having specific guidelines (we’re now hearing that “the lawyers” are involved and that official guidelines likely won’t be available until April), you should begin to plan your strategy for your bingo hall, bingos and/or fraternal clubrooms today. Therefore, below we have written out some ideas to help with your preparation for a non-smoking environment. Be warned. If you wait until April or May without any kind of plan, you will likely lose much of your crowd who are smokers.
March 11th, 2010 at 7:29 pm
Johnson and Johnson, makers of Chantix and Nicoderm, fund the bans through their Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-RWJohnsnF.html
Many tax exempt political action committees (charities?) received millions to sell smoking bans from RWJ Foundation. These bans are nothing but clever marketing strategy, with lots of highly publicized “sky is falling” hype
http://www.rwjf.org/pr/product.jsp?ia=143&id=14912
And what the 99 million dollars was going to. Note on page seven the “inside -out”, provision going for patios later, AFTER business owners spend thousands of dollars to build them to accommodate their smoking customers, clearly showing that the tobacco control activists have ABSOLUTLY NO CONCERN about local issues or businesses. You may need to CTRL and scoll to enlarge it.
http://www.no-smoke.org/pdf/CIA_Fundamentals.pdf
Prohibition is their next goal.
http://alcoholfacts.org/RWJfoundation.html
March 23rd, 2010 at 10:35 am
If the bingo hall is licensed as a “food service establishment,” it is exempt from any local smoking ban distance regulations under the same statewide preemption that prevented cities and countries from banning smoking in bars/restaurants.
Therefore, smoking would be permitted either outside the front door or anywhere food or beverages are not intended to be consumed.
Check out:
http://www.michigan.gov/smokefreelaw for the most updated info.