EDITORIAL: A Smoking Ban In Bars: Public, Private Or Both?

Publication Date: 2005-03-03

• Author:Editorial
• Publication:Caledonian-Record News

For years, now, the Legislature has been kicking around whether or not to ban smoking in bars in Vermont. A few years ago, the anti-smoking champions got a law passed banning smoking in bars that weren't set up to separate spaces for smoking from restaurants, where smoking was already banned. As a result of that law, a significant number of bars reinvented themselves as cabarets whose space does not vent into a restaurant and whose business is essentially serving alcoholic drinks, not food.

Now, the Legislature is back on the question...

They should restrict smoking in private clubs and bars, too. A level playing field is necessary if the ban is to be fair.