Michigan Legion Post Challenges Smoking Ban

The post says its fight to allow smoking in its tavern is about the freedoms that they fought to defend.

August 17, 2010

BARAGA, MI - American Legion Post 444 has sued the Western Upper Peninsula Health Department to strike down as unconstitutional the department's order to ban indoor smoking, the Detroit Free Press reports.

The post says its fight to allow smoking in its tavern is about the freedoms that they fought to defend, and it places a group of veterans at the center of a possible decisive showdown with the new state law.

"It's not about the smoking," post spokesman Joseph O'Leary said, whose members own and operate the tavern in Baraga. "It's about the right to choose to allow the use of a legal substance on our property."

While the post wasn't seeking a legal confrontation, once Michigan's smoking law went into effect, they said it was time to take a stand.

"These are guys who put their lives on the line for their country," O'Leary said. "They said, 'Wait a minute. This is our property. This is not heroin. Nobody in the world who doesn't like smoke has to walk through that door.

"They just decided enough is enough."
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