01-25-2012 Council Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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Kelly & Lemmons, P.A. ATTORNEYS AT LAW [i Trevor S. Oliver toliver@kellyandlemmons.com kellyandlemmons.com Issues for Council workshop on Tobacco Ordinance, 1 /25/12 From: Trevor Oliver, City Attorney 1. Two Tiered Licensing System We primarily discussed the two - tiered system as sotnething that would accommodate the City's permission for "sampling." The proposed ordinance also restricts sales of pipes, rolling papers and other "devices' to Tobacco Stores, which as discussed below may be a very useful route to addressing concerns about drug paraphernalia sales, even if a decision is made to ban sampling. II. Tobacco Store License A. Definition of sampling The question does not appear to be how to define "sampling," even though that's what we initially set out to do in response to the gap in the State law. Instead, the leading approaches either expand the indoor smoking ban to eliminate the exemption altogether, attempt to eliminate some of the methods of generating revenue from "sampling," or do nothing. From most to least restrictive: 1. Ban it (model ordinance. St. Anthony, St. Cloud, Bloomington, othersl. As pointed out in our previous discussion of this ordinance, the City has the authority to adopt a broader ban of indoor smoking than is stated in State law. In this case, that would include a specific ban on "sampling" in tobacco stores, in order to clarify that the City intends to nullify this exception to the State law. The language of a ban is straightforward: "Smoking shall not be permitted and no person shall smoke within the indoor area of any establishment with a retail tobacco license. Smoking tobacco, or lighting and burning tobacco, for the purposes of sampling tobacco and tobacco related products is prohibited." I have also attached a memo from the Minnesota Department of Health giving its interpretation of the Indoor Clean Air Act. In it, the Department's representative states bluntly that a "smoking lounge" business is illegal under the Indoor Clean Air Act. 2. Define sampling practices to eliminate revenue (Minneapolis). Our original proposal sought to allow "sampling" along the lines of what sampling usually means in other retail contexts. To do that, the proposal 1 2