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Canada Ontario Ban Update Page 3
Re: Fatal Cornwall crash was 'senseless' Nov. 17.
Published: Friday, November 21, 2008
This news article tells a very sad story. But what is overlooked is the real cause of the situation.
Instead of attacking the problem at its roots, the excessive and unfair taxation of a minority group, the authorities will simply call for more enforcement which will lead to more deaths, more people being imprisoned, and more taxation on everyone.
Cigarettes should be taxed fairly to reflect any extra health care costs due to their use. Fair evaluations of such costs point to it being around 50 cents per pack at the most.
Normally law-abiding citizens by the millions feel fine about breaking smuggling laws and smoking illegal cigarettes because they know that the taxation is unfair and feel perfectly justified in evading it. Until that root cause is dealt with we are going to see more and more deaths, crime, and general breakdown in our social system.
Michael J. McFadden, Philadelphia
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Fatal Cornwall crash was 'senseless' -ON
'These people are dead over a van-load of cigarettes': witness
Brendan Kennedy The Ottawa Citizen
Monday, November 17, 2008
A woman who witnessed a high-speed fatal collision -- caused by a suspected cigarette smuggler being chased by police -- in Akwesasne Mohawk Territory on Cornwall Island said yesterday that the violent crash produced a large mushroom cloud of smoke and an awful smashing sound.
"That noise when they hit was the most horrible noise I've ever heard in my life," said Anna Thompson, a 42-year-old mother of three and registered nurse who works at a health clinic on the reserve.
Ms. Thompson, who watched the chase unfold from the bead shop she co-owns only metres from the site of the collision, was almost sobbing as she recounted the accident that killed a couple from New York and the 21-year-old suspect.
When the chase began, the first thing Ms. Thompson did was call her 15-year-old son to make sure he wasn't anywhere near the reserve's main road.
"I called my son and said, 'They just flew by here, they didn't even stop at the crossroads. They're going to kill somebody the way they're driving'."
Around 8 p.m. Friday, Edward and Eileen Kassian, both 77, were driving home to Massena, New York, when the van, driven Dany Gionet of St. Jean sur Richelieu, Que., sped through a stop sign at the intersection of International and Island roads and slammed into their car.
All three were pronounced dead at the scene, near the bridge to the U.S.
According to witnesses, Mr. Gionet was travelling more than 150 km/h.
Mr. Gionet was being chased by Akwesasne Mohawk police after being flagged as a suspected cigarette smuggler by Canadian customs agents conducting anti-smuggling surveillance, according to Ron Moran, the u nion president who represents the agents.
Island Road, where most of the chase took place, is the reserve's main east-west thoroughfare. It has no lights, no sidewalks, and the posted speed limit within a few kilometres of the intersection is 40 km/h.
According to Mr. Moran, Mr. Gionet was flagged while he was on the island, but police did not pursue him until he crossed over to Cornwall. There, RCMP made an attempt to stop him, but he turned around and headed back over the bridge. RCMP called off their chase and alerted Akwesasne Mohawk police, who took up the chase when he was back on the island, Mr. Moran said.
Ms. Thompson said she heard "heavy engines" and watched as police chased the man from one end of Island Road to the other. Ms. Thompson said the suspect and the police officer behind him sped through the intersection without even slowing down.
"I was so happy to see that there were no cars there," Ms. Thompson said. "They flew right through."
Ms. Thompson said she was gripped by a terrible feeling and just kept watching the intersection, hoping no one would be hurt by the chase.
Two or three minutes later, she said, she saw the van, followed by the police car, speeding and heading right toward the intersection.
"I seen the lights ... and I said, 'Oh my God, they're coming back'."
That's when she noticed the Kassians' grey car approach the intersection, stop at the stop sign and begin to move forward.
"I could see them coming down for it and I started screaming, 'No! No! No! No!' "
Ms. Thompson then said it seemed as if Mr. Gionet's minivan bounced off the road and struck the Kassians' car "almost airborne," pushing it about 40 metres from the intersection.
The next thing Ms. Thompson remembers is seeing a great burst of smoke erupt from the wreckage, which was now only a few metres from her window.
She left the trailer, ran to the scene and tried to open the Kassians' car doors, hoping to pull them out. The mangled car was already on fire, she said, but she could see a woman in the backseat.
She tried to open the doors, but they were jammed shut.
A crowd had gathered at this point and police were yelling at people to keep back, she said, because they feared the vehicles would explode.
"A couple minutes later, I heard a loud bang and the whole car was on fire and they were burning in there," she said.
Ms. Thompson accused police of caring more about the cigarette smuggler and not doing enough to try to get the Kassians out of their car.
"To me it seemed like they were more worried about the van than those old people in the car," she said. "They all ran to the van like they were going to arrest him or something, and I was jumping up and down screaming for help over at the car."
Thirty-six hours after the crash, shattered glass, dozens of scattered cigarettes and burned bits of plastic still littered the scene, next to a makeshift memorial with flowers and a wooden cross.
Neither the OPP, who are investigating the collision, the RCMP
or the Akwesasne Mohawk police have confirmed that police were chasing Mr. Gionet or provided any information about the pursuit, except to say that attempts were made to stop Mr. Gionet.
The Akwesasne Mohawk Police Service asked the OPP to investigate the collision, OPP Sgt. Kristine Rae said.
The Special Investigations Unit, a provincial civilian law enforcement agency, usually investigates any incident involving police that results in serious injury or death. But Sgt. Rae said the Akwesasne Mohawk Territory is out of the SIU's jurisdiction.
"That territory is covered by the Akwesasne Mohawk Police Service and that service asked us to do the investigation, " she said.
Mr. Moran told the Citizen on Saturday that just prior to the collision, the Akwesasne Mohawk police called off the chase, though the suspected smuggler may not have known.
But on the reserve, several witnesses, including Ms. Thompson, found that hard to believe.
"The lights on that cop car were still on when they were coming down that hill," she said.
Anger and frustration about the accident and the chase simmered across the reserve yesterday.
"What I don't understand is when they went through the crossroads the first time, they could have killed somebody right then and there," Ms. Thompson said. "Why didn't they call it off then?"
Ms. Thompson said she stayed near the scene of the collision until after midnight, watching police unload the boxes of cigarettes from the minivan.
"All that kept going through my head was all these people are dead over a van-load of cigarettes. ... It's senseless."
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Crackdown sought after crash
Posted By Sun Media - Nov. 17, 2008
An eastern Ontario MP is requesting beefed-up border security after three people died in a collision following a police pursuit of an alleged cigarette smuggler.
A Massena, N.Y., couple and a young man police had been chasing were killed in the incident on Cornwall Island Friday night.
Edward Kassian and his wife Eileen, both 77, died when Dany Gionet, 21, of St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., ran a stop sign in a maroon minivan, police said.
Witnesses said the chase had been called off before the deadly crash, and photos taken at the scene showed cardboard boxes full of cigarettes had spilled onto the ground.
Stormont, Dundas and South Glengarry MP Guy Lauzon said he will be writing a letter today to Community Safety Minister Peter Van Loan calling for improvements at the Cornwall crossing into the U.S.
"I'm going to tell Minister Van Loan this area requires extra attention because so much of the smuggling activity is coming through here," Lauzon said.
"I read about the loss of lives in this case and my sympathies go out to their families."
Lauzon pointed out that Van Loan's predecessor, Stockwell Day, increased funding to the Canada Border Services Agency while in office.
Creation of the RCMP integrated criminal investigations unit has also made an impact on the cigarette smuggling problem, Lauzon said.
That unit meets often with members of the OPP, Cornwall police, Akwesasne police and New York State police to share information about cigarette smugglers and other contraband moving across the border, said RCMP Sgt. Michael Harvey.
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Your story on the deaths caused by the cigarette smuggling car chase was very sad, but what was even sadder was the response by the authorities. Instead of attacking the problem at its roots, the excessive and unfair taxation of a minority group, the authorities simply call for more enforcement... which will lead to more deaths, more people being imprisoned, and more taxation on everyone.
Cigarettes should be taxed fairly to reflect any extra health care costs due to their use. Fair evaluations of such costs point to it being around 50 cents per pack at the most.
Normally law-abiding citizens by the millions feel fine about breaking smuggling laws and smoking illegal cigarettes because they know that the taxation is unfair and feel perfectly justified in evading it. Until that root cause is dealt with we are going to see more and more deaths, crime, and general breakdown in our social system.
Michael J. McFadden
Woman arrested after car jumps sidewalk, hits man
Sun Nov. 02 2008 7:34:55 PM
Web Staff, cp24.com
A woman has been arrested following a suspicious hit-and-run collision in Leslieville this weekend.
A car mounted the curb outside Teddy's Sports Bar and Grill on Saturday morning, mowing down a patron who had been called outside just moments earlier.
The 60-year-old victim, who goes by the nickname "Six-pack," suffered a serious leg injury and is recovering in hospital.
On Sunday evening, Toronto police arrested 50-year-old Julie Warlow in connection with the incident. She's charged with dangerous driving and failure to remain at the scene of a crime, and set to appear in court on Wednesday.
Police are still looking for the vehicle involved in the collision. It is described as a red Saturn with the licence plate number AYFW 874.
Anyone with information about what happened is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 416-222-TIPS.
Read
The irony of Ontario's new smoking laws is that law-abiding citizens are treated worse than law-breakers
Wed, May 21, 2008
By JOE WARMINGTON
Tobacco covered up in Toronto
Sun Media's Joe Warmington hits the streets to see how local tobacconists are reacting to rules... - Watch video
Anybody wonder if they'll ever actually put smokers in jail?
Give them time because if you weren't already feeling like a pariah, wait until June 1!
You already have to smoke outside, will be fined if you smoke in your car with your kids -- and soon will no longer be able to see your brand of cigarettes on the counter thanks to a new law saying they must be covered from public view.
A routine purchase will become a clandestine operation -- something like buying contraceptives was before the AIDS crisis. No wonder people are flocking to the smoke shops on aboriginal reserves where the prices are often 50% lower and where the rules and regulations are less rigid.
But it will be interesting to see if the Smoking Cops will even dare to venture into some of the reserve smoking trailers and make sure they are complying with Ontario's new display ban. Or will they just nail the small retailers -- the ones who charge full price and collect the appropriate taxes.
UP TO $5GS
Neha Gor, at the Thomas Convenience store on Lake Shore Blvd. W., has not yet installed the customized cover for her "power wall" of cigarettes, which technically means -- as of June 1 -- she will be in violation of the new Smoke Free Ontario law. She could face a fine of $400 to start and it could eventually go up to $5,000. "We will be installing it," she says.
The problem is the installers are so busy right now. More than 5,000 of the province's 15,000 stores that sell smokes have not yet met the requirements.
The main point that needs to be made is if a law-abiding business person like Gor, who is selling a legal product, ends up being fined, the smoking fuzz better get out there and do the same with those who are not quite as law abiding -- specifically the illegal sellers who prey on children near schools with a van full of every cigarette brand available.
The ministry of health promotion insists nailing mom-and-pop stores is not their interest, but promoting health is. Hopefully, the smoke inspectors, employed by individual community health units, are hearing what is being implied and don't take the parking assassins' zero-tolerance approach.
These small stores are already being put through the wringer -- with the loss of the advertising revenue from big tobacco companies and the fact they have to pay up to $2,500 to make the changes to their stores. To nail them now could put some out of business and would not be a nice way to treat the very people who collect millions of tax dollars for the province.
Meanwhile, some stores are smartly ahead of the curve and have already started the clumsy practice of selling these hidden cigarettes that everybody knows they have. At the Holy Smokes location in a Loblaws plaza, along Queen's Quay, you'd almost think they were no longer in business. The closed shelves look just plain weird. And it's going to get worse, too, since their cigar humidor, as of June 1, will no longer be open to customers.
"They will have to choose their cigar from a list and we will go in and get it," said employee Tabatha Carey, adding that eventually the humidor will be covered too.
This is a smoke shop, for heaven's sakes. Everybody who goes in there knows what they sell.
"It's back door prohibition," says Arminda Mota, president of MyChoice.ca, a tobacco company-funded lobby group which is trying to fight this spirited onslaught of the powerful anti-smoking tree huggers. "They are treating us like kids, but still collecting billions in tax dollars."
She argues this is akin to putting alcohol back behind the counter at the liquor store on the grounds that booze kills people, which it does. And you could argue to hide away potato chips, pop and lottery tickets, too, since as Mota says: "They are all bad for you."
With the enormous cost of cigarettes, and with this latest bureacratic remedy, the black market can only grow. Ontario Convenience Stores Association president Dave Bryans says that's the part that bothers him the most -- the fact that the people selling cigarettes legally are being treated worse than those who sell them illegally.
"This is a dumb law that only a moron could come up (with)," says occassional cigar smoker Cliff Goldstein. If I were a retailer of cigars I would not obey it. Retailers have a right to display their wares. I, as a customer, have a right to see what I'm buying before I buy it."
Not in healthy Ontario after June 1, buddy boy.
Read
TTC employee secretly videotapes smoking co-workers
April 02, 2008
by Rob Roberts
A TTC employee who secretly videotaped fellow staffers smoking indoors on the job after managers ignored his complaints says he has been ostracized by his co-workers.
James Guglielmin’s videos, recorded in the last two weeks at the TTC’s Harvey Shops, shows TTC employees smoking at a desk, and sections of the shop floor littered with cigarette butts. The videos also show two TTC employees smoking directly outside an entrance, next to barrels of chemicals marked with warnings about highly flammable contents.
Mr. Guglielmin, 42, who drives a mini garbage truck at the repair station and who is deaf and partially mute and communicated with the National Post through hand-written comments, said that up to 10% of the shop’s 350 employees smoke inside the building daily.
The Harvey Shops, near Bathurst Street and Davenport Road, is a massive, two hectare, hangar-like building with 52 work and trade stations – ranging from upholstery and engine repair to body and paint detailing – that maintain the TTC’s fleet of streetcars and buses.
It is fairly easy for smokers to find quiet places to smoke inside, said Mr. Guglielmin, and the building’s size can make walking to an exit a 10-minute excursion. “It’s easier to just try to hide somewhere and smoke,” he said.
Danny Nicholson, a spokesman for the TTC, said the commission was aware of some problems related to smoking at the building and that it is working with management to stop problems there.
‘‘TTC management is aware of the problems there and is working hard to make sure they are solved,’’ said Mr. Nicholson.
Mr. Guglielmin said he first approached building management about the smoking in November, and a foreman made moves to stop smoking inside the shop, but also revealed that Mr. Guglielmin was the reason for the clampdown.
Mr. Guglielmin claims he is now ostracized and treated with disdain by some employees. He has drawn up a document, signed by a witness, that says the foreman behaved aggressively toward him at least once.
He now describes his workplace as “worse than hell.”
An internal TTC investigation into the matter could not confirm whether or not the foreperson in question revealed to other workers that Mr. Guglielmin was the source of the smoking complaints, according to a memo authored by Pat DiPasquale, superintendent of component overhaul at Harvey Shop.
In the memo, Mr. DiPasquale acknowledged Mr. Guglielmin felt unsafe because of how his co-workers were treating him.
‘‘The forepersons will be instructed to remind all employees that it is against Commission policy to smoke in the workplace and the forepersons will not tolerate infractions,’’ Mr. DiPasquale’s memo said.
In an interview, Mr. DiPasquale would not comment on smoking or employee problems inside the building.
The Smoke-Free Ontario act prohibits smoking in enclosed workplaces and public places.
Read
Smoke screens go up -ON
Tue, April 15, 2008
By BETH JOHNSTON, SUN MEDIA
Stores prepare for cigarette display ban effective May 31
Philip Beder has been going flat-out hiding smokes for Ontario retailers.
Beder's company, 4 Solutions Display Corp., has been busily installing doors on cigarette "power walls" across the province so customers won't be tempted by them after May 31.
"We're going pretty good -- seven days a week," Beder said yesterday.
In an effort by the Smoke Free Ontario Act to make smoking less a temptation, the new legislation will make it illegal to display tobacco products in convenience stores.
Smokers will have to know what they want or choose their purchase from pictures in a binder on the counter.
"It's tough for these vendors, that's their business. We're very mindful of that but it's also only about the health of Ontarians," said Rick Byun, spokesman for Health Promotion Minister Margarett Best.
"I think everyone agrees that smoking cigarettes is damaging, it's harmful to oneself."
Enforcement officers will be visiting businesses and encouraging owners to comply through education, rather than punishment, Byun said.
Beder said his customers weren't happy initially, but are coming around to the idea.
"People have gotten used to it. It could've been worse, if they'd taken away the back walls completely."
BUSINESS EXPENSE
He charges customers an average $800 to put doors on an eight-foot power wall.
Business owners can also move the cigarettes out of sight or under the counter.
"As we approach the deadline, it's absolutely on people's radar. People are finding a large variety of solutions and ways to comply," Byun said.
Flashy power walls are practically an invitation to kids to experiment with "forbidden fruit," Health Canada has said.
"The ubiquitous presence of these promotional efforts means that there is an unavoidable spill to young people and others, including former smokers and smokers trying to quit," the department said.
Tibibu Lemma, owner of the Quickie Convenience store on McCarthy Rd., finds it very inconvenient to reach behind the doors to get cigarettes.
"I don't like it but I can live with it, I guess," he said, adding he doesn't anticipate sales will drop. "We'll see whether the customers like it or not."
Saskatchewan was the first province to ban power walls in 2002. Alberta will be the last when it outlaws the displays July 1.
Byun understands the resistance to change, but is sure everyone will eventually embrace it.
"In general, people are willing to comply. That's been our experience in general with the Smoke Free Ontario legislation strategy on all levels," he said.
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Ontario Ban Prohibits Display of Tobacco
Posted: Monday, April 14, 2008
By Gregory Mottola
How does one find tobacco in Ontario, Canada, if a store can't advertise that it sells it, can't show it to you, and you can't touch it? This is not a riddle. Starting May 31, retail stores in Ontario must hide their tobacco from plain sight. A new revision to the Smoke Free Ontario Act, the Tobacco Display Ban will prohibit businesses from displaying tobacco products within their retail stores.
Buying a cigar in Ontario will become a convoluted experience. In stores that are not registered with the Ministry of Health Promotion, any form of display case, shelf, rack, dispenser, kiosk or window that exposes any tobacco product will be prohibited. Walk-in humidors will need to have frosted glass, so as to obscure the view from the outside. Registered tobacconists need not frost their walk-in humidor walls, and customers may walk inside their humidors, but they won't be allowed to physically handle a cigar before buying one.
The law also forbids promotional signs, illuminated panels, three-dimensional exhibits or decorative backdrops that reflect any brand of tobacco.
"The law is more concerned with convenience stores and cigarettes," said Jay Henderson, manager of La Casa del Habano in Windsor, Ontario. "Our shop is in full compliance."
Still, he said he receives about four annual surprise visits from the Ministry of Health Promotion. A business could be subject to a maximum fine of $10,000 for a first offense and $150,000 for three or more offenses. An individual could be subject to a maximum fine of $4,000 for a first offense and $100,000 for three or more offenses.
"It's a very bizarre situation now," said Henderson. "A store can have tobacco for sale, but you're not allowed to know about it."
From the current issue of Cigar Insider.
Read
Outer Ontario Update
January 19, 2008
The ban on smoking in commercial vehicles is not being enforced here. The boys in blue do not have the resources and advise if you are pulled over to butt out and open your window, as it is for a regular check or for some other unrelated reason.
All police services in Ontario are under staffed and are finding asking for increased budgets a waste of time, and don't have the man power to cover essentials without some delays.
As for contraband cigarettes, I am informed that it is the imports that take priority, so unless you drive a big rig onto a reserve they are not interested.
It is not unusual, when lining up for smokes on the reserve to wait behind a marked cruiser picking up his supply.
- A Newsletter Reader
Premier warms to car smoke ban
Tue, December 11, 2007
By ANTONELLA ARTUSO, QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU CHIEF
'Reprehensible' to puff away with kids in vehicle
Premier Dalton McGuinty is considering banning smoking in a car with a child passenger, calling the behaviour "reprehensible."
McGuinty said yesterday he's "listening" to the debate generated by Liberal MPP David Orazietti's private member's bill that would empower police to pull over vehicles where a child is being exposed to second-hand smoke.
McGuinty said he has had concerns about legislating behaviour in a private vehicle, but wants to hear what Ontarians think about the issue.
"It's pretty invasive; the car's kind of personal space," McGuinty said. "On the other hand, as a parent, I think the idea of smoking in a car is reprehensible. Kids have no choice in the matter so it's an important debate to have."
Under Orazietti's bill, an adult caught smoking in a vehicle with a passenger under 16 years of age would be liable for a fine of $200 to $1,000.
McGuinty said he would allow his fellow Liberals a free vote on the issue so they could support the ban if they wish.
The opposition parties have also indicated that they're prepared to have a free vote on Orazietti's bill which would apply only to Ontario.
NDP Leader Howard Hampton said he would vote in favour of the legislation.
"Most people feel it's atrocious that somebody would be smoking in their car where children have to inhale the second-hand smoke," Hampton said.
Interim Conservative Leader Bob Runciman said his party will be discussing it at a meeting today but will allow a free vote.
"There's varying opinions in our caucus ... (some MPPs are) really concerned about it being a slippery slope," Runciman said. "The next step will be you can't smoke in your living room with a child present."
"I don't think any of us find it responsible on the part of a parent to smoke with a child in an enclosed vehicle. That's totally irresponsible," he said.
It's an important discussion, the premier said.
"If nothing else, this debate will help to reinforce what we all understand -- that smoking is harmful for all of us, but it can be particularly harmful to children," McGuinty said. "And all those who become aware of the debate will hopefully understand that you shouldn't smoke in the car."
Read A Port Dalhousie bar owner has won what he is calling a precedent-setting victory against the province’s no smoking legislation. A decision handed down in provincial offences court in St. Catharines on Tuesday afternoon says smoking is legal on the west patio of the Kilt and Clover, and three charges against David Prentice, the bar’s owner, were dropped.
The Region’s smoke police charged Prentice last August when an inspector found four people smoking on the uncovered section on the west side of the bar’s L-shaped patio — the portion overlooking Main Street.
According to an agreed statement of facts, the patrons were being served by Kilt and Clover staff, and smokers were using ash trays on the tables.
Prentice said Tuesday he had been waiting for the charges, ever since Niagara Region officials had informed him of their interpretation of the province’s beefed up Smoke Free Ontario Act, which implemented tougher new smoking rules last June.
At issue was whether his whole L-shaped patio should be smoke-free, or only the portion that was covered by an awning.
“I wasn’t surprised (by the charges),” said Prentice in an interview after Tuesday afternoon’s victory, “because I instructed my staff to continue to allow people to smoke in that section.”
Prentice said he knew people could not smoke on the covered portion of his patio overlooking Lock Street, but he believed the uncovered portion should be a permitted smoking zone.
“I drew the charge on purpose, to go to court to fight what I thought was nonsensical,” he said.
The issue came down to the definition of a covered patio, said David Lorenzo, a manager in the Region’s tobacco control program.
“He has one way of looking at the legislation, we took a different viewpoint,” said Lorenzo, whose department said if any area of a patio was covered, the entire patio had to be smoke-free. Since the Kilt and Clover patio was continuous, the Region considered it to be all part of the same patio.
Justice of the Peace David Brown heard the case on May 31 and handed down his decision on Tuesday, agreeing with Prentice that smokers can light up on the west side.
“Basically, if the province leaves the door open by saying you can smoke outside on an open patio, then you are going to run into the issue of what is covered or what is not covered,” said Patrick Little, Prentice’s lawyer.
Little said neither he nor the prosecutor could find any other cases dealing with the same issue, which leads him to believe it’s precedent-setting.
Lorenzo said it will be up to the provincial Ministry of Health Promotion to decide whether to appeal Tuesday’s decision.
“We will contact them and they will likely be wanting the transcripts,” he said.
“It’s fairly new legislation and there are still some grey areas,” said Lorenzo.
The Region enforces the rules, but it’s up to the province to decide what should be done with the decision.
Overall, smokers and proprietors in Niagara are doing a good job of implementing the tougher anti-smoking rules, Lorenzo said. Most people comply after a written warning is issued, he said, and public health officials are also heartened by the reduction in overall smoking rates.
Prentice, who doesn’t smoke himself, said it would have been cheaper to pay the roughly $1,200 in fines than the $5,000 he expects he’ll have to pay his lawyer, but he wanted to make a point.
“It was a matter of integrity,” he said. “You’ve got to go with your gut instinct and with what you believe in. I thought it was wrong and I thought it was unfair.
Smoking at bingo is back.
Hit first by early anti-smoking rules, blue-haze bingo gave way to bingo with smoking rooms and then Ontario's ban on smoking in public places stubbed out even that option.
But players will soon be able to light up at a London-area native reserve, in a smoking room that takes up half the hall and has a concession where smokes will be sold. Paradise Bingo opens May 11 in Muncey, on the Munsee-Delaware First Nation.
Ontario's smoking ban led to the death of many bingo halls in Southwestern Ontario during recent years.
But Paradise Bingo owner Mike Duval said yesterday the hall in Muncey will succeed and grow "because we're going to be offering big prizes and because we're offering a smoking room."
The business can skirt the ban on smoking because it's on a reserve, which isn't subject to provincial laws.
A spokesperson for the Middlesex-London Health Unit said it doesn't have jurisdiction over smoking on reserves.
The smoking area will take up 4,000 square feet, about half the hall's gaming space.
"It'll hold 160 people," Duval said.
He said patrons will also be able to buy smokes at the hall.
Duval said he wasn't sure whether the cigarettes will be sold tax-free.
That's also been a point of contention, with the health unit raising concerns that non-natives are buying cheap, tax-exempt smokes on reserves when only natives are entitled to that right.
But Duval said the smoking issue --he agreed it will be one of the bingo's big draws -- isn't a matter of local jurisdiction.
"No, this is federal land. The health unit has no say over it."
Already, a big advertising splash has been made to accompany the hall's opening.
Newspaper advertisements have emphasized the smoking room and have highlighted the chance to win big prizes.
Duval said another factor is that the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, which regulates bingo halls, has relaxed the rules so that halls can offer more prize money.
As with all bingos in Ontario, a cut of the proceeds will go to charities -- on-reserve charities in this case, Duval said.
The hall will be staffed mostly by natives and will operate three bingo events each afternoon and evening, seven days a week, at its site on Jubilee Road in Muncey.
In Windsor, Duval operates Paradise Bingo, which offers nine events daily.
Duval was in the forefront of a battle in the Rose City to keep a smoking area there because, he said, the non-smoking rules deter customers from Michigan.
At Muncey, though, Duval expects most customers will be from Southwestern Ontario.
Whether or not there's smoking at a reserve-located bingo wouldn't be an issue considered in the licensing process, said Ab Campion, a spokesperson for the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario.
