Georgetown Cigar Party to Protest Washington State Smoking Ban

From Cigar Jack comes a tip about the Georgetown Cigar Party, a protest against the anti-smoking legislation recently passed in the state of Washington.

I’m in the process of getting more information from contacts in Washington which I hope to pass along later today, but the gist of the idea is to have a protest modelled after the Boston Tea Party. It will be held on Friday, December 2, 2005 from 3:00 to 6:00 pm at Rain City Cigar, 5963 Corson Ave., S., Suite 130, Seattle, Washington. Phone number for the store is (206) 767-3619 and their email address is raincitycigar@qwest.net.

Some of the tobacco industry people who will be at the Party include: Patrick Dewitt of General Cigar Co., Steve Martin of Altadis USA, and Don Hanes of Monarch Marketing. The event is being characterized in a flyer put out by Rain City Cigar as “an Act of Resistance,” where “great blue clouds of smoke” will be cast into the air before a copy of Initiative 901 will be symbolically thrown into the trash and the group will prepare for a protest march on Washington’s capital, Olympia.

Initiative 901 is the strictest smoking ban in the country. Going into effect on December 8, the ban outlaws indoor smoking in all workplaces, over 5,300 restaurants, 1,160 bars, 98 bowling alleys, dozens of casinos — and even in all cigar bars and cigar shops. The law even bans smoking in private clubs on private property. Also, at least 75% of all rooms in each hotel and motel in the state must be non-smoking, and with the 25-foot rule it effectively requires all rooms to be non-smoking rooms.

Under the new law, smoking outdoors is also prohibted everywhere in the state within twenty-five of any windows, doors or ventilation ducts of a public building. With a strict interpretation of the law, it would be possible for someone smoking in their car on a public road to be ticketed because they were passing within 25 feet of a building.

Individual smokers can be fined $100.00 for each violation. Under the legislation, business owners must enforce the law or be subject to fines themselves. If they do not, they get a single warning and can then be charged $100.00 for each day they allow violations of the law on their premises.

“To that you can add a contempt-of-court fine that a court might impose for deliberately not complying with the law,” said Phil Brenneman, director of the civil enforcement section of the Seattle City Attorney’s Office.

“I think it will get people’s attention.”

Trade groups are predicting drops in business from 25% to 40%. Within three months of the ban, they predict that many smaller bars and restaurants will be going out of business.

Specifically exempt from the new legislation is all Tribal land in the state of Washington. The law is expected to be a boom for business there.

More information as it becomes available.

Posted on Thursday, November 24th, 2005 at 6:21 pm.