Senate panel approves ban on cigar bars

Rocky Mountain News

Published May 1, 2007 at midnight

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The Senate Appropriations Committee approved and sent to the full Senate today a bill that would outlaw cigar bars.

Lawmakers said they fear traditional bars are calling themselves cigar bars to take advantage of an exemption in the statewide smoking ban.

The committee backed a proposal (Senate Bill 250) to close the loophole for bars that get 5 percent of their income from selling tobacco.

The smoking ban currently has three big exemptions — casinos, cigar bars and the smoking lounge at Denver International Airport.

The exemption was aimed at protecting only a handful of cigar bars, including Churchill's at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver, but many other bars have latched on to it, according to Kimberly Hills of the Colorado Tobacco Education and Prevention Alliance.

The cigar bar exemption was a key part of a ruling by an Adams County judge in early April that the smoking ban was unconstitutional. The judge said the law violated the due-process rights of bar owners because it didn't allow them a chance to establish themselves as cigar bars.

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