City Cost To Prosecute $221 Smoking Ban Fine Is $60,000

[The Straight Story]

City Cost To Prosecute $221 Smoking Ban Fine Is $60,000
Bar Owner Found Guilty Of Violating Ban


COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- A bar owner in Colorado Springs has been found guilty of violating the state's smoking ban and fined $200, plus court costs, according to the Colorado Springs Gazette.

The newspaper is reporting that the cost of prosecuting the case was $60,000.

The case stems from a March 2007 incident when two police officers went into Murray Street Darts on Murray Boulevard and they saw people smoking. Those officers testified that bar owner Bruce Hicks was selling the smokers ash trays for $1.

Hicks told 7NEWS he was fighting for small businesses.

Seventeen months later, Hicks went on trial before a jury. That jury found Hicks guilty of violating the state's smoking ban.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/17438987/detail.html

[dmallind]

1. Some creative accounting there

That $60,000 was not all that variable. It doubtless includes things like prosecutor time etc. However had that case not been prosecuted would we have had fewer prosecutors working fewer hours or would they have just had one fewer case on their dockets? Obviously the latter. We certainly woouldn't see a reduction in teh number of court staff or facilities etc. I'd be surprised if more than a few hundred dollars was actually caused by that specific case being prosecuted. It would hardly require investigator time or much in the way of prosecutorial investigation. A quick statute search, a couple of standard forms by a lowl level clerk, and the actual minutes in the court were all that would have been saved by not prosecuting.

However even if the number were 100% variable, what laws should we not enforce because of CBA? Should we not enforce illegal possession of guns perhaps? Or theft or vandalism or any other crime where fines do not cover costs? What price do you put on the law after all?


Of course the real solution is to make the fine for such scofflaws significantly higher than $200. Start charging the ones who allow this crime one month's revenue from audited accounts (and pass the results on to the IRS while you're at it) for every instance and they would stop. The fines in the interim would more than likely come closer to the gratuitously inflated "costs" of prosecuting them.

[trotsky]

2. A more accurate title would be, "Lawbreaker forces city to pay $60,000 to convict him"

I'm sorry that smoking bans are so unpopular with smokers, but the reason this cost so much money is that one guy who knowingly and intentionally broke THE LAW decided to try and fight it. He lost.

[uncle ray]

5. yeah, and saddam forced us to attack Iraq.

i'm a non-smoker, and i very much appreciate going into a bar that is not smoke filled, but the law is unfair and needs to be challenged. it has exceptions for bars with outdoor patios, there smoking is allowed, so most bars that could, built outdoor "patios" that are for the most part enclosed. go into any of these establishments and 80% of patrons will be "outside". some bars don't have the space or ability for whatever reason to adapt to the law. understandably many business owners are upset when they can't allow smoking but the business right down the street can.

the reason for the big expense is because the law was so poorly written, and this being the first test of the law in colorado springs, it took them much work to determine how to even approach the case, ie. can they even defend the law.

meanwhile nearby in cripple creek, now a casino town, the casinos were allowing smoking under the guise of a "cigar bar" and the police refused to do anything because it's not their job to determine if a business is a cigar bar. that responsibility was never granted to anybody. the law is a poorly thought out and written mess.

a much more sensible law would simply state a business must have a non smoking area, where there is to be zero indication of smoke, and they are allowed a smoking area, so long as certain air quality levels are met within that area.


edited spelling.

[NashVegas]

3. Just An Example of What Good Little Sheep We Are

Many social control laws are outright laughable, but no one realizes just how much power they hand over to municipalities when they comply.

Permitted marches / gatherings is another one that kills me. Freedom of assembly is in the consitution, yet we continually allow governments to narrow our options on that.

We invite our own despotic government by allowing social control laws to go on the books, instead of engaging in personal negotiations.

[liberalUSA]

4. Maybe...

You can't put a price on health? HA!

[MadHound]

6. Nearby small city loosened their marijuana laws a few years back

Making it a municipal charge rather than a state one, and lowering the fine for misdemeanor possession. This city also enacted a smoking ban with a stiff fine. So stiff that it is now cheaper to get caught smoking dope in a bar than smoking a cig. Talk about some fucked up shit.