Private clubs not exempt from smoke ban

A veterans group leader says backers of the ban duped his members.

COLUMBUS (AP) — Private clubs can’t allow smoking despite language in Ohio’s statewide smoking ban that seems to allow it, a judge has ruled.

The state overstepped its authority when writing rules exempting private clubs, including VFW halls that had fought to be excluded from the ban, Franklin County Common Pleas Judge David E. Cain said. He blocked the exemption from taking effect at the request of a restaurant and bar owners’ group.

Cain described as overbroad the Ohio Department of Health’s attempt to resolve contradictory language in the SmokeFree Act, which both allowed smoking in private clubs and restricted smoking in most workplaces.

Smoking at clubs would violate an intent of the ban to keep workers from being exposed to secondhand smoke, he said in his decision rendered Thursday.

“The court cannot think of a scenario under the SmokeFree Act in which the ‘private club’ exemption would actually apply,” he wrote.

In his 13-page order, Cain said neither the court nor the Health Department has to void the state’s rule that said smoking at clubs was allowed.

“This is true because from the very beginning there was never a ‘private club’ exemption in the SmokeFree Act,” he wrote. “There was an apparition that called itself a ‘private club’ exemption, but that exemption did not really exist.”

Vets group reaction

Bill Seagraves, state commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said he feels backers of the smoking ban duped many of his own members who supported the ban.

“If they didn’t mislead us, why did they put private clubs were exempt on the ballot when that’s not the case?” he said. “I’ve had people to call and tell me they voted for the smoking ban because they don’t think there should be smoking in restaurants but they said I thought it wouldn’t apply in our clubs.”

Wendy Simpkins, a spokeswoman for the American Cancer Society, which helped promote the ballot measure, said there was no attempt to mislead.

“For folks who say they were confused, the law and the details were absolutely clear,” she said. “They were on every petition we circulated, they were on our Web site for nearly two years, so certainly people had multiple opportunities to learn more about the law before they voted on it.”

She noted that the Ohio Licensed Beverage Association, the owners group that brought the court action, provided a list of private clubs that had qualified for the exemption, so it could not have been null as written.

Not one of Ohio’s 88 counties rejected the measure, she added.

Kristopher Weiss, a spokesman for the Ohio Health Department, said the state was still reviewing the judge’s order Thursday and had not yet decided whether it would appeal.