Legal Issue

Whether the private club exemption in North Carolina’s statewide smoke-free legislation violates the Equal Protection Clause under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Overview

On January 2, 2010, North Carolina’s smoke-free law took effect, prohibiting smoking in nearly all public places, places of employment, and state government vehicles, including for profit clubs.  The law exempts non-profit private clubs.  The owner of Gate City Billiards filed suit against the law after the Guilford County Board of Health cited him for violating the smoke-free law and rejected the claim that the business was a private club exempt from the law.  The plaintiff claimed that the distinction between not-for-profit private clubs and for-profit clubs was not a fair way to classify exemptions from the law, and that it violated the Equal Protection Clause under the 14th Amendment.  In July 2010, a North Carolina district court judge rejected the plaintiff’s claim, and determined that the narrow private club exemption in the state’s smoke-free law was constitutional. Gate City Billiards appealed the decision to the North Carolina Court of Appeals.

On December 8, 2010, the American Heart Association, American Lung Association, American Cancer Society, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, Campaign for Tobacco-free Kids, and the Tobacco Control Legal Consortium filed an amicus curiae brief in support of Guilford County Department of Public Health.  We argue that North Carolina’s smoke-free law (“An Act to Prohibit Smoking in Certain Public Places and Certain Places of Employment”) does not violate the Appellants’ equal protection rights under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution or the Law of the Land Clause under Article 1, section 19 of the North Carolina Constitution, and that the North Carolina Court of Appeals should affirm the decision of the Guilford County District Court and uphold the Act.  Our brief points out that equal protection challenges to smoke-free legislation enacted around the U.S. have consistently failed; that the incremental approach the general assembly adopted in exempting non-profit private clubs is rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest; and that both the private club exemption and the Act are constitutionally valid.  The brief also requests that if the Court finds an equal protection violation, it hold only the private club exemption unconstitutional while upholding the remainder of the statute to accomplish the General Assembly’s intent in protecting North Carolina residents from harmful secondhand smoke exposure.

Outcome

On July 19, 2011, the court of appeals affirmed the district court’s holding that the law was constitutional. The court concluded that the NC General Assembly had several possible rational bases for differentiating between for-profit and nonprofit private clubs, including paralleling the definition of private clubs under the state’s food and lodging sanitation statutes and preventing establishments from operating under the guise of private clubs in order to fall under the exemption.

The North Carolina Supreme Court denied Gate City’s petition for review on November 9, 2011.