Owners of 3 bars plead guilty

The smoking ban violation trials against three local bar owners were settled Thursday when the owners pleaded guilty to one charge each and had several others dropped.

The most high-profile of those owners, Bruce Hicks, pleaded guilty to one count of violating the state's smoking ban by allowing patrons to smoke at his Murray Street Darts bar. He was fined $321 by El Paso County Judge Karla Hansen and had another case dismissed.

Two other bar owners, Gary Bishop and Jeffrey Eickman, each pleaded guilty to one count and had two others dismissed. They paid $221 in fines each.

Hicks claims police and prosecutors are picking on the bar owners because they held meetings in early 2007 to plot strategies to oppose the law.

Hicks was found guilty in two previous cases by El Paso County juries last month. But his attorney, James Dodd, has asked Hansen for a new trial because two jurors in the second trial visited Murray Street Darts, then reported back to the other jurors during deliberations that no "cigar bar" sign hung there, according to Dodd's motion.

Jurors are forbidden from investigating cases - such as visiting crime scenes or looking information up on the Internet.

Colorado Springs police sent undercover officers into Hicks' bar in March 2007 and saw patrons smoking openly. Hicks' defense has been that he sold cigarettes - totaling more than 5 percent of his overall sales - and should have been exempted from Colorado's Clean Air Act under the "cigar bar" exemption.

"Two jurors went on to state that if the Defendant really ran a cigar bar, he would advertise it," the motion states. "The jurors' conduct mandates that the Defendant be granted a new trial."

In a sworn affidavit, Dodd told Hansen that he talked to one of the jurors after the trial and "the first thing out of his mouth" was that two jurors had visited the bar.

A hearing on the motion has been scheduled for Dec. 1.

Also Thursday, Hansen lifted the gag order she imposed on the cases after the first trial.