Court Opinion

ID: 9691407
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 20:29:45.340564+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:18.200273
License: Public Domain

Justice GRAVES.
I would strike down the ordinance as being arbitrary and oppressive and therefore in violation of Section 2 of the Bill of Rights of the Kentucky Constitution 1 The ordinance is arbitrary because there are less intrusive means to achieve the intended result of making sure that the health of non-smokers is protected. The ordinance is oppressive because it operates as a regulatory partial taking of private property without just compensation.
Private property does not belong to the public. Employing a large staff, or providing services to many people, is not sufficient to transform private property into public property. The litmus test for private property is ownership, not the size of the customer base or the work force.
Since tobacco is a legal product and smoking a legal activity, the private business owner should have the choice to either prohibit smoking in his or her establishment, or be permitted and required to warn patrons that smoking is allowed and that second-hand smoke presents a health hazard. Thus, both the business owner and the customer have freedom of choice, and the ends of the ordinance are achieved in a reasonable manner. Customers are warned of the risk of second-hand smoke up front, and can easily avoid the risk by leaving the premises.
Each business is unique. Each deals with a different clientele. Who but the owner is best able to determine the effect of a smoking ban on profits? If he is wrong, he will soon adjust, or go out of business. The American economic system works best when individuals are able to put resources to their most highly valued use. The right to own private property is the foundation of a free market economy.
Use is an essential attribute of ownership. The private property owner operates a restaurant to make a profit, not because his fellow man needs to be fed. The owner chooses to either prohibit or permit smoking depending upon which choice will be the most efficient use of the investment of his capital and labor. Through regulations, the government is restricting a reasonable and economically efficient use of the owner’s property. Such a partial taking and impairment of economic efficiency amounts to a regulatory taking for which compensation should be paid in accordance with the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution 2 and Section 13 of the Bill of Rights *758to the Kentucky Constitution3.
Property rights have crucially contributed to our freedom and prosperity. In Vanhorne’s Lessee v. Dorrance, 28 F.Cas. 1012, 2 U.S. at 310 (1795), the United States Supreme Court noted that the “right of acquiring and possessing property, and having it protected, is one of the natural, inherent and inalienable rights of men .... The preservation of property then is a primary object of the social compact.” In Dorothy Lynch, et al v. Household Finance Corp., et al, 405 U.S. 538, 552, 92 S.Ct. 1113, 31 L.Ed.2d 424 (1972), the Supreme Court stated, “Property does not have rights. People have rights.... In fact, a fundamental interdependence exists between the personal right to liberty, and the personal right in property. Neither could have meaning without the other. That rights in property are basic civil rights has long been recognized.”
The actions of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government are comparable to those in centrally-planned economies where property tends to be managed by the state and government officials decide how to use those resources. The system of private property ownership works best when the individual holds the right to manage his property. When the law fails to respect private property rights there is little incentive to be productive and accumulate capital, grow economically, and create jobs.
Since the owner is free to start a new business or close an existing business, he should be able to determine—for good reasons, bad reasons, or no reason at all— whether to admit smokers, nonsmokers, or both. Customers or employees who object may go elsewhere. They would not be relinquishing any right that they ever possessed. By contrast, when a businessman is forced to effect an unwanted smoking policy on his own property, the government is taking part of his property by regulation.
C.S. Lewis warned of the loss of self-determination in The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment:
Of all tyrannies a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

. § 2. Absolute and arbitrary power denied. Absolute and arbitrary power over the lives, liberty and property of freemen exists nowhere in a republic, not even in the largest majority.

. Amendment V. No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment of indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the *758same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

. § 13. Double jeopardy Property not to be taken for public use without compensation. No person shall, for the same offense, be twice put in jeopardy of his life or limb, nor shall any man's property be taken or applied to public use without the consent of his representatives, and without just compensation being previously made to him.