It seems many states cannot decide what to ban, its either smoking, gambling or both. In one state you might find that you can gamble the night away but you cannot smoke in all areas of the premises, in others you may find that you can smoke and gamble in the same place. It is this fact that has Iowa bar owners very upset. They see it as unfair that people who go to casinos can smoke in the establishments but cannot smoke in their bars.

The state of Iowa has banned smoking in almost all public places; which includes bars and restaurants. Yet it is still legal to smoke in the states casinos. This has caused major friction with local bar owners. The bar owners are upset because they believe they lose business because customers cannot smoke on their premises. Representative Brian Quirk of Iowa actually agrees with the bar owners and has proposed an unusual idea.

Quirk has suggested that the bars in the state can be allowed to offer gambling as a replacement for smoking. Quirk believes this would satisfy bar owners as it would compensate for their complaint against the new smoking laws.

"We're creating this inequity between casinos and bars. If (bars) were allowed to have some type of gaming device, on a limited basis and heavily regulated, that would go a long way toward keeping their doors open," said Quirk.

Quirk is behind his idea and in the future the state of Iowa may see new legislation proposed that would see bars gaining the right to offer gambling to their customers. This would be an interesting solution to the problem.


- 2008-09-17