Smoking law shows how Nevada rules are made to be broken

To hear them tell it, Las Vegas tavern operators have lost boatloads of business because of the voter-approved Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act of 2006.

That’s why they were represented this week at the Legislature as they tried to push through Assembly Bill 571, which would obscure the original intent of the state’s toughest no-smoking law in yet another cloud of logic-choking exemption.

There’s no question in the tavern owners’ minds that the law cost them dearly. They were forced to either stop serving food or go out of pocket to create smoke barriers separating puffing customers from chicken wing eaters.

When they lost players, they blamed the law. When their bottom lines diminished, they blamed the law. When they terminated employees because business was down, they blamed the law.

While I wouldn’t argue the law had some impact, the tavern owners also ignored a few inconvenient facts.

For starters, there’s the fact the law has been enforced more in the media than in reality. The Clark County Health District hasn’t been dispatching scores of cigarette cops on raids of smoke-filled taverns.

Then there’s the fact the unemployment rate for beer-drinking, video poker-playing Southern Nevada construction workers has climbed toward 100 percent in recent years. It’s rarely cited as a possible cause for the softening bottom line at the local watering holes.

The fact the Las Vegas home mortgage crisis and recession-era joblessness forced scores of locals to start spending their entertainment dollars on ramen noodles isn’t often mentioned by bar bosses who were sick of playing by rules that others have been all too happy to ignore.

But with all that said, I can’t blame the tavern owners for feeling put-upon. After all, the casinos were exempted from the Clean Indoor Air Act, and Strip resorts have traditionally been the unofficial Secondhand Smoke Capital of the World.

Then there’s the other end of the spectrum, all those grandma-themed slot arcades such as Dotty’s that managed to fly under the radar for years. They didn’t have to comply with the letter of the law regarding food service for taverns with restricted slot licenses; you’d find better chow in a vending machine at the Greyhound station. They also didn’t have to worry about creating a nonsmoking atmosphere in adherence with the new state law.

But when Dotty’s locations started popping up across the valley like weeds in your desert landscaping, the Nevada Resort Association’s neighborhood casino contingent needed help fighting the spread. Because the NRA is the 800-pound gorilla in every room, it relied on tavern owners to help make the case that all those lucrative Dotty’s arcades violated the spirit and the intent of the law and weren’t otherwise playing by the Vegas Rules. (No. 1 is the Golden Rule: The men with the gold make the rules.)

On Monday at the Legislature, observers heard that the smoking ban was not only bad for the tavern business, but for the convention business as well. It turns out two tobacco-themed conventions went elsewhere when organizers learned they wouldn’t be able to smoke their brains out anywhere they pleased.

Starting to spot a pattern?

Rules are for little people. Only the little people of Nevada thought they were banning smoking when they voted for the smoking ban. Casino bosses, tavern owners, convention bookers and slot arcade moguls never believed it for a minute.

And who runs this state, anyway?

So now there’s a push to pass AB 571, which would officially let the tavern owners off the hook. Casino operators are too big to hook.

That’s Nevada, which is only about a decade behind most of the rest of the nation when it comes to limiting smoking areas. Around here, buying stock in Big Tobacco and Chemo R Us have always been smart investments.

Something smells in the Silver State, and it isn’t just cigarette smoke.

John L. Smith’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295. He also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/smith.