1851 Center Files Challenge to Ohio Smoking Ban and Seizure of Tavern
COLUMBUS - The Buckeye Institute's 1851 Center for Constitutional Law yesterday filed a legal action challenging the constitutionality and enforcement of the Ohio smoking ban. Filed on behalf of the Columbus tavern Zeno's, the action also seeks an injunction to prevent the Ohio Attorney General from seizing the tavern and its assets to collect on smoking ban citations. The suit is part of the 1851 Center's ongoing defense of tavern owners unfairly victimized by the state’s smoking ban. It was filed in Franklin County Common Pleas Court.
The filing alleges Ohio's smoking ban unconstitutionally deprives business owners of fundamental property rights. It also argues that the Health Department's actions while enforcing the ban are unconstitutional and at odds with the plain language of the ban.
If successful, the action would overturn key provisions of the ban and invalidate fines levied under the current framework.
"This matter is first and foremost about private property. The smoking ban represents one of the greatest universal deprivations of property of rights in Ohio's history," said Maurice Thompson, 1851 Center Director. "Small businesses like Zeno's do not exist to sustain the fickle preferences of far-off voters who never patronize it. Meanwhile, the Health Department issues crushing $5,000 fines without meaningful investigation."
"The Attorney General has now threatened to seize Zeno's. This message, that any Ohio small business that's not fully on board with the state's 'public health' edicts will be shut down, demonstrates the Orwellian ends of a regulation that many initially viewed as innocuous," Thompson added.
The filing notes that none of Ohio's neighboring states have statewide bans, and that local bans in other states typically make exceptions for taverns that are not family oriented.
A copy of the filing is available online here.
The Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, together with its 1851 Center for Constitutional Law, is a nonpartisan research and educational institute devoted to individual liberty, economic freedom, personal responsibility and limited government in Ohio.
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