Actually, some modestly good news from the Capitol on the DFL’s proposed statewide smoking ban; thank goodness for outstate DFLers:

The momentum toward a statewide smoking ban was slowed on Wednesday in a key Senate committee. But the bill survived a crucial amendment that supporters say would have “gutted” the proposed legislation if it had passed.

By one vote, the Senate Business, Industry and Jobs Committee refused to pass an amendment that would have exempted bars that derive more than 50 percent of their sales from liquor from the ban. The committee faces another key vote on whether to allow bars to put in ventilation systems, a move that ban opponents say would effectively protect workers and others from the dangers of second-hand smoke.

Well, duh.  The ban isn’t about health.  It’s about social control.

Pushed by Iron Range DFLers, several amendments were introduced to either send the bill to more committees, effectively slowing its path to the floor, or to exempt some groups from the ban. One amendment, from Sen. Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, would allow workers who lose their jobs because of bar and restaurant closings to apply for training from the state’s dislocated worker program. Another, by Sen. David Tomassoni, DFL-Chisholm, would study the economic impact of the loss of charitable gambling from banning smoking in bars and restaurants. Both will require stops in other committees. Both amendments passed.

I’m not going to kid you; as a lifelong nonsmoker (but for about four cigars a year), I don’t mind smoke-free bars.  As someone who used to work in bars, and come home reeking of smoke every work night for over three years, it’s a little refreshing…

…until I see how my bar-owner friends are suffering over the regulation of a voluntary activity.  The pros and cons of bans have been debated endlessly by people smarter than I at these sorts of things, and the cons have won everywhere but in the legislature.

A [committee] vote is expected Monday.

The bill would prohibit smoking in all public places in the state, including bars and restaurants. Supporters say it would eliminate a patchwork of smoking bans in counties and municipalities and provide a level playing field for businesses. It would exempt certain American Indian rituals, smoke shops, hotel rooms and scientific studies of smoking.

Depressing, sure.

This next part – that’s different.

Indian casinos would not be covered under the ban, but Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who said he supports a statewide ban, said on Wednesday that the state should consider approaching the tribes about participating if the proposal passes.

That part is just wrong.  I have never had a problem with giving Native Americans a monopoly on gambling; for all its problems, it’s a form of reparations that actually works (if sanity doesn’t prevail on  the whole “reparations to slaves” issue, I’d be all for compromising by legalizing marijuana and granting it as an exclusive franchise to documented descendants of slaves).  There’s a difference between alloting an exclusive, non-competitive (leaving the Mob out) market to a group, and giving a group a government-sanctioned advantage at something that everyone is involved in.

So we have to put our “confidence” in the outstate DFL contingent to reel in the lunacy of the DFL-controlled legislature, or for Governor Pawlenty to veto its dumber effluvia.