Bills filed to end smoking in bars, riverboats and casinos
by Ed Anderson - Times-Picayune (excerpt)

BATON ROUGE -- A Baton Rouge area lawmaker late Thursday filed two bills aimed at banning smoking in bars as well as gambling outlets like riverboats and the New Orleans land-based casino. Sen. Rob Marionneaux, D-Livonia, who got a ban on smoking in most public places through the Legislature in in 2006, filed Senate Bill 348 that would ban smoking in any bar and in casinos, video poker and slot machine parlors, race tracks and off-track-betting parlors. Those areas are the ones that were exempted from the smoking ban Marrioneaux's original bill covered. The earlier bill banned smoking in restautrants, public buildings, schools, hospitals, doctors' offices and other locations. Attempts to expand the ban to bars and gambling outlets in subsequent years have failed.