Court rules in favor of smoking ban

Publication Date: 2007-08-15

• Author:Howard Pankratz
• Publication:Denver (CO) Post

A district court judge ruled today that the state has the right to ban smoking where it sees fit — a decision that dashed the efforts of an Adams County topless club to permit smoking by its patrons.

"The public interest in protecting the health of non-smoking patrons from harm...is a legitimate exercise of the state's police powers," said District Judge Chris Melonakis...

Melonakis said that the Colorado Supreme Court has repeatedly held that when a party — such as the Oasis — challenges the constitutionality of a law, it must prove it is unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt. In addition, the Oasis had to show that there were no "conceivable set of circumstances" where the challenged law could ever be applied in a legal fashion, he said.

He noted that in October of 2006, Chief U.S. District Judge Lewis Babcock upheld the state smoking ban which had been challenged by a coalition of tavern and bowling-alley owners.

In doing so, Babcock said that legislatures have broad discretion to make economic and social distinctions in the "pursuit of valid public policy goals." Courts, Babcock declared, may strike such legislation only if the distinctions are irrational and completely unrelated to any conceivable public policy.