The Massachussets Supreme Court has ruled that state and local health officials can extend public smoking bans to private clubs, even those off-limits to the public:

With anti-smoking laws making it tougher for smokers to find a place to light up, members of the American Lithuanian Naturalization Club of Athol thought they had held on to a small sanctuary for smokers when a judge ruled that the town did not have the authority to extend a statewide ban on workplace smoking to the town’s private clubs.

But the state’s highest court overturned that on Wednesday, ruling that local boards of health can ban smoking in private clubs.

[...]

“This is like hitting a home run in Fenway Park,” said Athol town lawyer Mark Goldstein.

“Our goal is to protect the public,” he said. “The board of health felt that second-hand smoke is a real health problem, and even though some members want to go there and smoke, there are people — workers, vendors and other members of the club — who may not want to be exposed to second-hand smoke.”

And look what’s next:

Brookline, the first municipality in the state to ban smoking in bars and restaurants, also banned smoking in private clubs in the mid-1990s. Alan Balsam, the town’s public health commissioner, said he’s now fielding complaints about smoking in multifamily buildings. ”I would say the issue is now more about condominiums and apartments,” he said. ”There should be some way that people can avoid second-hand smoke in their own home if it’s coming from the apartment below. What if the kid upstairs has asthma? It’s a tough decision.”

No, it isn’t.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 23rd, 2006 at 10:58 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.