ADA bans lottery-ticket sales in smoking venues?

by Walter Olson on November 10, 2007

Make way for another creative application of the Americans with Disabilities Act: the office of Texas attorney general Greg Abbott says it could violate the ADA for the Texas Lottery Commission to permit sale of its lottery tickets in stores that allow smoking. “Lewisville resident Billy Williams complained to the commission in 2006 that he had an asthma attack after buying a ticket at a smoky store.” Abbott’s office found that the ADA requires that disabled residents be provided with “‘meaningful access’ to state services”, in this case consisting of lottery tickets, and that smoking-allowed policies at participating retailers could impair such access. (”Smoking questioned for stores that sell lottery tickets”, AP/Houston Chronicle, Nov. 9).

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{ 4 comments }

1 teqjack 11.10.07 at 4:50 pm

Does that mean it would also be illegal for the State to collect taxes on items sold in such smoky environments?

2 OBQuiet 11.11.07 at 1:03 am

So now can nicotine addicts sue the stores?

3 mojo 11.13.07 at 11:46 am

The Lottery is a “state service”?

Presumably in the same manner a prostitute “services” her clients…

4 Invid 11.13.07 at 8:27 pm

Not quite mojo – a prostitute provides a genuine, immediate benefit that can be bargained for. The lottery provides a method for people to give money to the state with the hope that there will be a benefit.

Prostitution is much more honest

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