
	Chris Mulick has worked for the Herald since 1998 and has served as the statehouse correspondent covering state government and politics since 2000. He works year-round out of the Herald's Olympia bureau on the state Capitol campus. Have a question? Send Chris an e-mail and he'll answer the best questions regularly.

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Tuesday, Jul. 08, 2008

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Cigar bar initiative missed it by that much

Supporters of an initiative to allow smoking in cigar bars and private clubs issued a press release yesterday indicating they fell just shy of getting the needed 225,000 signatures to get Initiative 1016 on the ballot.

Brad Shannon at The Olympian has the story today.

Supporters collected 213,000 signatures, though they weren’t as close as that sounds. After you factor in signatures that would have been invalidated it seems likely backers would have been at least 30,000 signatures short and likely more.

But in the words of initiative promoter Tim Eyman, it’s “frickin’ tough” to get an initiative on the ballot and I-1016 backers are proud of their effort.

"Just as our opponents failed the first time they tried to pass the current draconian smoking ban, so too will we be back to correct this injustice,” initiative sponsor Joe Arundel said in press release.

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