The recent debate in local newspapers and radio in the Twin Cities has to do with a smoking ban in bars and restaurants.  Hennepin County (where Minneapolis is located) currently has a ban on smoking in all bars and restaurants.

Bar owners and pulltab-dependent charities have cried foul, as bar patrons have given up Hennepin County bars and restaurants in favor of those in neighboring counties without such restrictions.  (Bars in cities bordering other counties are claiming more severe difficulties.)  Bar owners have pushed for making a ban state-wide if there has to be one at all.

(Of course a state-wide ban would drive potential smoker-drinkers to Wisconsin, the Dakotas, and possibly Ontario, thus hurting other border cities...)

I suppose that younger drinkers and grizzled bar veterans enjoy going out to bars to drink and to socialize, and to smoke if they want.  This may be an opportunity for some disgruntled bar patrons to take up drinking at home.  Drinking at home offers: cheaper drinks, no smoking ban, far less risk of getting caught driving while drunk, and no necessity to tip anyone. 

I suppose that the lesson that we learn from all of this is that people like to stack up their compulsive activities: smoking, drinking, gambling, stuff like that.  It is hard to make new laws regulating them