 by Ed Felien
Editor/Publisher of Pulse of the Twin Cities
In a campaign almost devoid of issues, where candidates emphasize their differences in style as opposed to substance, the only issue that has separated the candidates is their position on the smoking ban. Randy Kelly said at first he was in favor of a ban, but he didn’t want to hurt St. Paul bars. The City of Minneapolis and Hennepin County passed a ban. Then, Ramsey County passed a ban for bars and restaurants surrounding St. Paul.
 Then,
when the City of St. Paul passed the ban, Kelly vetoed it anyway. So, it looked
like he’d been conning us all along. He’s got the support of the
St. Paul bars, but, because of this issue and his public embrace of George Bush
last year, he’s lost the support of the St. Paul voters.
The City of Minneapolis passed a ban, and, then, Hennepin County followed suit.
But some of the bar owners went to the Hennepin County Commissioners and asked
them to reconsider their ban because it was ruining their businesses. Most authorities
on smoking bans tried to reassure the bar owners that there would only be a
six-month lag in business and that they would recover and do even better. At
a meeting to reconsider, McLaughlin talked about how the bars were hurting,
and he looked like he was ready to undo the ban. That same day the bar owners
threw a fundraiser for McLaughlin. It looked funny. Hennepin County did a study
that found liquor sales in bars within Minneapolis gained 4 percent during the
2004 to 2005 period the study examined. Rybak has been consistently in favor
of a smoking ban.
The smoking ban study, released Sept. 2005, can be seen at Hennepin
County's website.
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