The coalition of SD eating and gaming venues’ owners decided to file a petition to Hughes County Circuit Court last Monday, meaning that the fate of local ban on smoking in public places will be decided possibly within a month or even more by a state judge.

The delay in implementation as well signifies that smokers may keep puffing in bars and taverns casino floors and venues with video slot machines, without being fined. The opponents of the ban claim that this is the South Dakota electorate who should decide whether to ban smoking on public or not.  

The date of the hearing has yet to be revealed, however it would be made public very soon, according to Larry Long, SD Attorney General.

Long admitted that he expects the ruling to be announced within not more than a month.

Mark Barnett, Circuit Court Circuit Judge called of the implementation of the smoking legislation until the action is settled. The state general Assembly approved the legislation back in February, prohibiting smoking in venues where meals and drinks are served, as well as floors of Deadwood casino and video poker bars.

On July 23, Chris Nelson, SD State Secretary confirmed that more than 8,800 signatures to pass the ban on the ballot for 2010 vote were not valid, declaring that the opponents of the ban came short of  221 valid signatures of the number necessary to handle the ban to a statewide vote. Supporters of the statewide ban disputed approximately 10,000 signatures.

However, the ruling of circuit court would not likely to be the last one in the battle for smoking ban.

The Attorney General said that he thinks that the party who would loose in the circuit court would definitely file an appeal to the Supreme Court, so the decision by Judge Barnett would certainly not be the final one.  

Don Rose, one of the opponents of statewide smoking ban said that had no choice but to file a lawsuit against the state secretary, since they would like people to decide whether to ban smoking. He added that it was unfair to discard so many petitions just because of a small technical mistake.

Nelson considered that 2,552 signatures have been invalid due to mistakes by notaries. The majority of cases, included simple carelessness, when notaries made mistakes, putting wrong commission expiration date on signatures they legalized, admitted Larry Mann, a representative of ban opponents coalition, a group representing Restaurateurs Association of South Dakota,   Deadwood casinos, the Association of Licensed Beverage Dealers and video slot venues.  

Mann admitted that they think the ruling would be in their favor, since it would not be fair to disregards valid signatures because of notary errors.  

He said that the court should consider number of people willing to put their signature below the petition and not disregard them due to mistakes of other people. He added that they would not be contesting Secretary’s decision if the people who signed the petition had not been registered voters, but the situation is completely different.

The law had been expected to enter into force on July 1, before the petitions were presented.