Kansas lawmaker wants to exempt bars that sell lottery tickets from smoking ban

Never doubt elected officials’ ability to find a creative way to get a pet project done. Bar owners across Kansas were howling (and filing suit) last year when the state Legislature passed a statewide smoking ban for almost all bars and restaurants. Perhaps most upsetting to establishment owners was the exception in the law that allowed for state-owned casinos to allow smoking, out of fear that state gambling income could drop sharply.

Since lawsuits to repeal the law failed in court, state Rep. Joe Seiwert (R-Hutchinson) is trying a new tactic, and his logic is strangely coherent. If state casinos are exempted from the law because they provide the state with gambling income, then bars that sell lottery tickets should be exempted as well, because they pump gambling cash into public coffers. That might just be crazy enough to work.