State tries to shoot down challenge to statewide indoor smoking ban

Publication Date: 2005-07-13

• Author:DENISE ZOLDAN
• Publication:Naples (FL) Daily News

The Florida Attorney General's Office wants a federal judge to toss out a suit filed by an East Naples restaurant that claims the state's indoor smoking ban is unconstitutional.

Attorneys in the office of Attorney General Charlie Crist claim in federal documents, filed in U.S. District Court in Fort Myers, that Castaways Backwater Cafe Inc. offers no facts to support its claim that the Florida Clean Indoor Air Act is "born exclusively of economic considerations."

Last month, the restaurant sued the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco, claiming that the unequal application of the act makes it unconstitutional.