Minnesota’s smoking ban turns 1 today.<\/p>\n
In the year since Minnesota banned smoking in public establishments, the results have been both predictable \u2014 revenues from pull tabs and other charitable games have taken a hit \u2014 and unexpected \u2014 using a loophole in state law, a group of people dressed in Renaissance costumes staged smoke-filled “theater nights” at several bars around the state.<\/p>\n
But attitudes haven’t changed. Last winter, ClearWay Minnesota conducted a poll that found 76 percent of Minnesotans supported the Freedom to Breathe Act, which went into effect Oct. 1, 2007. A poll released last week found the figure virtually unchanged at 77 percent.<\/p>\n
“I think the public has adjusted amazingly well. The law is just a part of Minnesota now,” ClearWay Minnesota spokeswoman Kerri Gordon said.<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
While the ban’s proponents have measured a whole slew of smoking-related statistics (the amount of nicotine and cigarette related chemicals in bar employees is way down), they seem to strenuously avoid the big ones.<\/p>\n
How many bars and restaurants has the ban euthanized?<\/p>\n
How many jobs have been lost?<\/p>\n
Indeed, have more lives been lost to the stress of job losses and people driving farther to get to bars than from the (largely unproven) casualties of second-hand smoke?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Minnesota’s smoking ban turns 1 today. In the year since Minnesota banned smoking in public establishments, the results have been both predictable \u2014 revenues from pull tabs and other charitable games have taken a hit \u2014 and unexpected \u2014 using a loophole in state law, a group of people dressed in Renaissance costumes staged smoke-filled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-minnesota-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}