Bar owner fined $200 for allowing smoking

In what has to rank as the longest case - 17 months- for a petty offense in El Paso County's history, bar owner Bruce Hicks was convicted by a jury Tuesday of violating the state's smoking ban.

Hicks, a longtime and vocal opponent of the Colorado Clean Air Act of 2006, was fined $200 plus court costs.

Colorado Springs police filed the case in March 2007. They discovered Hicks and other bar owners planned to violate the law, so they sent in undercover officers.

On March 6, 2007, officers Jason Luce and Jonathan Allen went into Hick's Murray Street Darts bar, 609 N. Murray Blvd., and saw people smoking.

The officers, who usually investigate narcotics cases and liquor code violations, testified Tuesday they witnessed seven people smoking in the bar and Hicks giving them ashtrays for $1.

The six jurors took less than 30 minutes to decide the case after the daylong trial Tuesday.

"It cost the state over $60,000 to prosecute this case and they collected $221," Hicks said after the trial. "Has it been worth it?"

Hicks and his attorney, James Dodd, filed appeal after appeal in the case, and it went all the way to the Colorado Supreme Court on pretrial issues. Police originally filed 23 counts against Hicks, but 19 of them were dismissed after higher courts ruled a bar owner or manager could only be charged with one violation per day.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Robin Chittum thanked the jurors, but otherwise declined comment after the trial. She said she could not discuss whether a plea bargain was offered or would be offered in future cases.

Dodd tried to convince jurors first that Hicks wasn't the owner of the bar, that a corporation controlled it. He then tried to convince jurors that Hicks sold cigarettes and cigars from the bar - not just from vending machines - so it should be exempted from the law as a "cigar bar."

During his closing arguments, Dodd told jurors that the law is vague - trying to get them to hang up on the phrase "permit" patrons to smoke in the bar.

"If he didn't call police is that permitting?" Dodd asked. "It was the smokers who broke the law. There were (no-smoking) signs on the wall and windows."

Dodd argued police and prosecutors were picking on Hicks because "he exercised his First Amendment free speech rights" and hosted a meeting among bar owners to oppose the law.

But Chittum urged jurors to use their common sense.

"It was clear what was going on," Chittum said. "This was a smoke-filled bar, and the patrons were practically blowing it on him. Just because there was a sign up doesn't mean anything. ... You don't have to wrestle them to the floor and grab the cigarette, but you can stop handing out ashtrays. You can stop holding meetings."

"We'll regroup and see where we need to go for the next trial," Dodd said.

Hicks has three more trials scheduled in coming weeks on the same charge. Six other bar owners have similar trials coming up in El Paso County Judge Karla Hansen's courtroom in coming weeks.

Hicks said after the trial much of his legal expenses were paid by bar patrons and that the 17-month legal ordeal has been worth it.

"This is almost like the first step of many to come," he said.

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CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0110 or dennis.huspeni@gazette.com