More on stakeholders: how corporations influence and profit from public policy

This paper has been lodged with legislators in Ohio. It concludes:

Ohio's Constitution is much more protective of property rights than the U.S. Constitution.  We can't wait to have our properties returned to their rightful owners!  We want you, our state legislators, to know that you've supported these special interest groups over us mom and pop business owners.  You've forgotten to protect the minority.  You've forgotten that our properties are to be held forever inviolate.  That's "forever", not ignored when it suits special interests.  No one is forced to work for us and no one is forced to enter our properties.  We want to be profitable once again.  And we want you to know that we know who's behind controlling our behaviors for profit.  Now...do you want to side with them?  Or us, the people who vote? 

Whether you agree or not that private property should be inviolate, it can't be right for wealthy corporations to be able to lobby for policies that are ostensibly in the public interest, in a way that sidelines public participation, and from which they gain clear commercial advantages.

For the particular attention of Sheila Duffy, who clearly feels that tobacco companies are the only companies that attempt to influence public policy.

Adult venues recognised in Galveston, Texas: smoking ban revised

Galveston, island city in Texas, has revised its smoking ban, which has been in force since only January this year. Amendments to relax the ban will be implemented after just over a week, allowing 'adult-only' venues to admit smoking, and considerably reducing the non-smoking zone around doorways in venues that will remain non-smoking.

The smoking ban was the subject of court action by a number of businesses including a party that had already implemented an indoor smoking ban and built a patio. Their fight defends the principle that proprietors choose their market and regulate smoking behaviour on their premises and complains the council made no investigation of how the ban would affect their premises.

It seems that Thursday's council decision has pre-empted any decision from the courts.