Bar owners file for preliminary injunction to stop smoking ban - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

While Indianapolis' smoking ban is being fought over in the courts, several bars are hoping to stop the ban from being enforced.

Mark Small is the attorney for ten Indianapolis bar owners. He says the bars have filed for a preliminary injunction to stop the enforcement of the ban while the case is being litigated in the federal district court in Indianapolis.

The bar owners say they've seen a 60-percent drop in business since the ban went into effect June 1st. They've had to lay off staff or cut hours. Small says revenue brought in from pool tables, juke boxes, and dart boards is also down.

If the preliminary injunction is granted, it would prevent the city from enforcing the ban until the district court can consider the merits of the lawsuit.

Small says his clients run "small, neighborhood taverns" that they've poured their life savings into, and that they're concerned the smoking ban is putting them out of business. 

The bar owners' filing also attacks the studies cited by the city to justify the ban. Those studies found that secondhand smoke is dangerous to bar employees. Small calls it "junk science" and criticizes the studies as flawed, although secondhand smoke has been classified as a cancer-causing agent by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the US National Toxicology Program, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a branch of the World Health Organization.