Posts Tagged ‘Smoking ban’

29
Oct

Smoking ban lights up tempers on the Flathead Reservation

   Posted by: admin    in Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Flathead Indian Reservation, Health

Rick Wheeler, owner of The Club on the Flathead Reservation, says he would lose most of his customers if he enforced the state’s smoking ban in his bar. (Vince Devlin/Missoulian)

Rick Wheeler, owner of The Club on the Flathead Reservation, says he would lose most of his customers if he enforced the state’s smoking ban in his bar. (Vince Devlin/Missoulian)


Montana’s newly enacted smoking ban for bars has proved a boon to the state’s reservations, whose casinos and other businesses are exempt from the ban.

That’s raised the ire of non-tribal bar owners on the Flathead Reservation, who say the competition is killing them.

Rick Wheeler owns The Club in Ronan, on the western Montana reservation. His bar is just a block away from the Pheasant Lounge. That’s owned by Lori Peterson, an enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.

People can still smoke in The Club. But not, technically, in the Pheasant Lounge. Missoulian reporter Vince Devlin explains that technicality here.

Basically, Wheeler is allowing his patrons to light up in defiance of the law.

Otherwise, Wheeler says, he’ll lose the estimated 90 percent of his customers who smoke and “that’s not right. This bar is my retirement – do they want to take that away form me, too? It’s racial discrimination.”

Both Wheeler and Peterson tell Devlin that bar owners on the reservation who enforce the smoke ban have seen their businesses drop by as much as $1,000.

Gwen Florio

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5 Comments
22
Oct

Hate Montana’s new smoking ban? Try a tribal casino.

   Posted by: admin    in Apsaalooke, Crow Tribe, Health, Northern Cheyenne

Crow Agency resident Timothy Rondeau has his cigarette and a cup of coffee at the Little Bighorn Casino. (David Grubbs/Billings Gazette)

Crow Agency resident Timothy Rondeau has his cigarette and a cup of coffee at the Little Bighorn Casino. (David Grubbs/Billings Gazette)


The state of Montana finally went smoke-free at the beginning of this month, when even the final holdout bars and restaurants had to tell smokers to get their butts out.

But wait! The new rules apply to the state of Montana, not to the sovereign nations on the seven reservations within the state’s boundaries.

That’s been a boon to tribal casinos such as the one in Crow Agency, which now runs TV ads touting its smoking status since the Clean Indoor Air Act went into effect, the Billings (Mont.) Gazette reports here. The Charging Horse casino on the nearby Cheyenne Reservation also allows smokers.

“Gambling and smoking go hand in hand,” says Wales Bull Tail, manager of the Little Bighorn casino. “Gambling without smoking is like trying to eat meat without salt.”

The tribe reports that, since the smoking ban went into effect elsewhere in the state, business at its casino has picked up.

“You’d go crazy playing these machines if you couldn’t smoke,” says Mike Little Nest, a patron of the Little Bighorn casino. “If I’m gambling, I’m smoking. It’s easier on the nerves.”

Gwen Florio

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