smoke shops

Rep. Brent Barton led six moderate Democrats to join with Republicans to support the cigar lobby, helping them to avoid paying any fees to the state for their certification, and perpetuating an unseemly state policy that steals money from the tobacco prevention fund and uses it to promote tobacco smoking by allowing the shops to bypass the indoor clean air act.

It seems absurd on the surface. When the state passed its Clean Indoor Air Act in 2007, it gave an exception to cigar bars and other smoke shops that focus on tobacco to continue to light up in their businesses, so long as they were certified to sell primarily tobacco products and built a closed ventilation system to protect other businesses from hazardous secondhand smoke.