State Status
No Preemption
News Summary
Group files challenge to new R.I. smoking ban
Publication Date: 2005-03-29
- Author:SCOTT MAYEROWITZ
- Publication:Providence (RI) Journal-Bulletin
The new state law exempts a number of small neighborhood pubs, nonprofit organizations such as the Knights of Columbus, and the state's two gambling parlors.
Filed in Superior Court, Newport, the lawsuit claims that there is no logical reason to exempt some facilities while prohibiting smoking in others.
Exempting ``substantially identical public places,'' the lawsuit says, ``is arbitrary and bears no reasonable relationship [to] the promotion of the public health and welfare or any other permissible state objective.''