OLYMPIA – American Legion Post 149 in Bremerton has challenged the state’s indoor smoking ban.
The post filed suit Thursday in Thurston County Superior Court against the state and Kitsap County.
On May 18, the post was ordered to ban smoking or face prosecution.
Voters overwhelmingly approved a statewide indoor smoking ban last fall. Initiative 901 prohibited smoking in bars, restaurants, bowling alleys, minicasinos, most hotel rooms and most other nontribal businesses that had been exempted from the state’s Clean Indoor Air Act, which had already banned smoking in most public places.
But the Legion post contends the initiative did not change language in state law that said, “This chapter is not intended to restrict smoking in private facilities which are occasionally open to the public except upon the occasions when the facility is open to the public.”
Janelle Guthrie, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, said the state will “defend the will of the people in passing the smoking ban initiative, including its ban on smoking in private clubs where employees will be subjected to secondhand smoke.”
In an opinion issued last month, the state attorney general’s office said lighting up in private clubs that don’t have any paid employees does not violate the smoking ban.
The opinion said clubs with employees count as a workplace, where smoking is banned.
In its filing, the Legion post said it is a private club that employs a small number of people who are smokers in a “private enclosed workplace.”
Opinions from the attorney general’s office are not binding on any court, but they are used by state agencies and legislators as legal advice.
A hearing on the lawsuit was scheduled for Aug. 4.
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