Friday, May 18, 2007

State senate bill would incent restaurants, bars to ban smoking

From the Michigan Information and Research Service

Restaurants and bars that decide to prohibit smoking could receive a financial incentive from local governments if a bi-partisan bill introduced today gets through both chambers.

Sens. Jason ALLEN (R-Traverse City), Alan SANBORN (R-Richmond), Jim BARCIA (D-Bay City), Randy RICHARDVILLE (R-Monroe) and Valde GARCIA (R-Howell) introduced a bill that's designed to encourage restaurants to ban smoking.

SB 0514 would give local governments permission to pass an ordinance that would give food establishments that prohibit smoking a fiscal incentive that would look like a partial property-tax exemption.

The idea behind the bill is to encourage private business to move to smoke-free environments without imposing mandates on small businesses. The smoking ban debate generally has Republicans claiming that government shouldn't be able to step in and tell business owners what to do while Democrats argue that smoking is a public health risk so the government should step in and ban smoking in restaurants and bars.

Sen. Ray BASHAM (D-Taylor) has repeatedly introduced bills that would ban smoking in these places.