uN.Y. Bill Seeks To Outlaw Smoking In Hotel Roomsr

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  (NoNoJoe)

  Although it’s illegal to smoke in most indoor spaces in New York — office buildings, bars, restaurants, retail establishments, etc. — those looking to light up a cigarette can still do so in hotel and motel rooms that are specified as smoking rooms. That could change soon, if a new bill in the state legislature succeeds.

  When the Clean Indoor Air Act was passed in the state in 2003, the hotel industry got an exemption that allowed smoking in rooms, along with other indoor spots like private residences, cars, cigar bars, membership organizations and retail tobacco shops.

  Assemblyman Ken Zebrowski has had personal experiences with those smoking rooms that prompted him to introduce the bill to remove that exemption for hotels last month.

  “I’ll be honest, I spend a lot of time in hotel rooms,” Zebrowski told Democrat & Chronicle. “One of the things I’ve noticed is if you are above, below or next to a smoking room — even if you’re a non-smoker — it comes right through the vents.”

  The bill is going to face stiff opposition from the tobacco industry when lawmakers get back to the Capitol in January: Altria, the parent company of Phillip Morris USA, says it should be up to business owners whether or not to allow smoking.

  “In indoor public places where smoking is permitted, business owners should have the flexibility to decide how best to address the preferences of non-smokers and smokers through separation, separate rooms and/or high-quality ventilation,” reads the company’s website.

  As for how the hotel industry will react, it’s unclear: chains including Marriott and Westin have already banned smoking within their hotels, so they don’t have an interest either way.

  “At this point, with the bill being introduced, we will go out to our 1,300 members, survey them and talk to them before we can give industry-wide feedback,” Mark Dorr, vice president of the New York State Hospitality & Tourism Association told the Democrat & Chronicle. “So we really don’t have a position on it right now.”

  The bill doesn’t have a sponsor in the Senate yet, but Zebrowski also hasn’t reached out to anyone about picking it up so far.

  “I just think from all the evidence of the detriments of second-hand smoke and as much as we’ve tried to eliminate the threat to non-smokers, this I think is a reasonable next step,” Zebrowski said.

  Bill would ban smoking in NY hotels (Democrat & Chronicle)

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uMan Masquerading As Walmart Employee Walks Out The Door With Four Big Screen TVsr

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  Surveillance video shows a man posing as a Walmart employee stealing four large Samsung TVs.

  Walmart already has a long list of workers vying for the title of “worst employee,” but it’s a thief posing as an employee at the big box store that might take the cake: walking in the door, grabbing four big screen TVs and simply walking back out the way he came.
  

  Police near Dallas are asking for the public’s help in finding the brazen thief who stole four Samsung televisions from a Walmart store last month, the Dallas Morning News reports.

  Authorities say the man, wearing a vest and employee badge, walked straight to the store’s stockroom, loaded up a hand truck with thousands of dollars worth of smart TVs and walked out the door to a waiting Nissan vehicle.

  The fake employee perhaps wasn’t stealthy as he may have thought. A real employee of the store took notice of the large haul and followed the man outside. The worker was able to take down the plates of the Nissan getaway vehicle.

  However, police say the information was a dead-end, as the plate number was connected to a Land Rover.

  “He knows what he’s going after,” police Sgt. Robert Eberling said of the their. “He pretty much committed the identical offense” at another store the week prior.

  Anyone with information about the fake Walmart employee can call the Grapevine Police Department at 817-410-3200.

  Fake Walmart employee walks out of Grapevine store with big-screen TVs [The Dallas Morning News]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uJudge Signs Off On $415M Settlement To Resolve Tech Industry Anti-Poaching Conspiracy Caser

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  (SarahMcGowen)

  More than three-and-a-half years after a group of workers in Silicon Valley filed a lawsuit claiming that some of the technology industry’s biggest bigwigs were involved in a secret, anti-poaching pact to prevent their employees from switching jobs and thus, keeping their salaries down, a judge has approved a $415 million settlement to lay that case to rest.

  U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh ended antitrust claims against Apple, Adobe, Google and Intel over allegations that they’d gotten together and promised not to pillage each others’ workforces with a 15-page order on Wednesday, reports the San Jose Mercury News.

  The problem for workers in that situation is that with no one trying to woo them away from their current jobs, there’s no hope of gaining leverage to ask for a raise when the time comes.

  The deal had been expected since the proposed settlement was tentatively approved earlier this spring. It’ll will keep the CEOs of those Silicon Valley tech giants out of the courtroom, where a trial could’ve aired embarrassing allegations: the proceedings had unearthed internal emails that cast former Apple CEO Steve Jobs and others in a not-so-great light, including missives where he’d allegedly been the one behind the “gentlemen’s agreements.”

  All the companies involved have denied wrongdoing, saying they’re only settling to avoid the risks of a trial, which could’ve cost them an estimated billions of dollars in damages.

  Poaching settlement OK’d: Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe must pay $415 million [San Jose Mercury News]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uCVS Claims That Booting Tobacco From Stores Has Made Us All Healthierr

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  (zipsonic)

  Today marks the one-year anniversary of CVS removing tobacco products from its pharmacies. How’s that working out for them? The company reports that sales of non-drug items were down slightly in the last year, but tobacco isn’t a very profitable item. Parent company CVS Health is celebrating the anniversary with a study that it says shows that its decision decreased total cigarette sales nationwide.

  How do they know that the decrease didn’t coincide with people switching to another tobacco product, or wasn’t just part of the overall national trend of people smoking less? They used states that have no CVS stores at all as a control group, and also noted that cigarette sales decreased more in states that happen to have more CVS stores. If you want to check out their methodology, they described where those numbers came from in a short research paper.

  They looked at two figures to determine how many people in a given area were quitting: cigarette pack sales and nicotine patch sales. Even if someone returned to smoking, using one of CVS’s promotional coupons to buy some nicotine patches is at least a proxy for trying to quit. Where CVS has more than 15% of the drugstore market share, they point out, cigarette sales went down 1%.

  Not everyone is buying CVS’s narrative of itself as a national health savior, of course.Lawmakers were already encouraging stores with pharmacies to quit selling tobacco products because of the mixed health message that it sends, even if the cigs are behind one counter and the drugs behind another.

  “CVS only sold a very small percentage of the nation’s cigarettes to start with,” a fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research told USA Today, “and financial analysts have said the impact of CVS’ move wouldn’t have a major impact on smoking rates.” Discovering that one store doesn’t carry cigarettes isn’t enough to induce someone to quit when plenty of stores have them available.

  We Quit Tobacco, Here’s What Happened Next [CVS Health]
  A year later, CVS says stopping tobacco sales made a big difference [USA Today]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uSam’s Club Wants To Help You Buy A Carr

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• Earlier this year, Costco reported that it had sold nearly 400,000 vehicles of all makes and models at its stores across the country with the purpose of making its members happy. Today, Sam’s Club launched a similar endeavor that will put keys in the hands of the warehouse store’s faithful following.

  Sam’s Club announced today that it had partnered with TrueCar for its new Auto Buying Program that aims to give members discounts and exclusive savings of up to $3,000.

  Under the program, Sam’s Club members will have access to more than 10,000 TrueCar Certified Dealers nationwide – more than three times the nearest competitor in the warehouse club channel, the company claims.

  “We’ve chosen to launch our auto buying program with TrueCar based on their proven ability to bring car buyers a best-in-class experience,” Seong Ohm, senior vice president of merchandise business services at Sam’s Club, said in a statement. “Our auto buying program will save members both time and money.”

  Like the Costco program, Sam’s Club’s version aims to differentiate from the typical car buying experience, avoiding the typical haggling and upselling one might expect.

  “By empowering members with critical pricing information prior to purchase, the Sam’s Club Auto Buying Program improves the entire car-buying experience,” the company says.

  To access the program, members visit SamsClub.com/auto, enter their location and desired car type. They are then given information on what others in their market paid for the car they want, and can then browse pricing information from local dealers.

  Once members are satisfied with their choice, they print their Guaranteed Savings Certificate or bring it on their mobile device to the selected TrueCar Certified Dealer to finalize the purchase.

  It’s unclear if Sam’s Club will be making money off of their car brokering foray. That’s certainly not the case for Costco: much like its unprofitable practice of selling rotisserie chickens to keep members loyal, the retailer doesn’t actually make money on the car sales it helps broker. Instead, Costco only offers the discounted vehicles to attract and keep members.

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uFeds: Green Energy Ponzi Scheme Duped Consumers Out Of $54.5Mr

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  (Steven Depolo)
  

  When someone makes a promise that seems too good to be true: like saying you’ll be “stinkin’, filthy rich” if you invest in their green energy technology, it’s a good idea to look into that proposition with a little more scrutiny. That kind of attractive, yet ultimately worthless deal cost consumers nearly $54.5 million, federal prosecutors say.

  The Department of Justice announced today that federal prosecutors filed fraud and conspiracy charges against the three co-founders of Pennsylvania-based Mantria Corporation for their part in bilking millions of dollars from unsuspecting consumers.

  Under the scheme, from 2005 to 2009 the group encouraged retirees to drain their retirement accounts and mutual funds accounts to funnel money into empty projects with promises of yields as high as 484%.

  The company advertised their projects in ads on television, radio and the Internet, including two in Tennessee: one a 4,500-home development and the other a $3.2 million plant that would produce charcoal substitutes.

  The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that court filings quote one of the operators as saying the company was “on the cusp of a revolutionary technology that’s going to change the world. You guys can benefit from it by putting money in and getting stinkin’ wealthy.”

  “Unfortunately for the investors, it was all a hoax,” U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger said in a statement Thursday. “These defendants preyed on the emotions of their victims and sold them a scam.”

  In fact, investigators found that the Tennessee real estate development consisted of little more than some roads, a model home and a gate.

  Likewise, the charcoal substitute plant never generated sales.

  “Even while claiming their company made millions, they knew that Mantria had virtually no earnings, no profits and was merely using new investor money to repay earlier investors,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert J. Livermore wrote in charging documents.

  This isn’t the first time the group has been in trouble for their untruthful business practices. Back in 2012, two of the defendants were ordered to pay $37 million each after losing a Securities and Exchange Commission civil suit.

  [via The Philadelphia Inquirer]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uWhy Some Pro-Pot Ohioans Are Against An Initiative To Legalize Marijuanar

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  (Brett Levin Photography)

  Although the issue of marijuana legalization can seem straightforward in many ways — either you want medical and recreational to be bought, sold and consumed legally or you don’t — a current initiative in Ohio that would amend the state’s constitution to allow legal pot is meeting resistance from some of the people who are usually in favor of the stuff.

  NPR’s All Things Considered talked to folks in Yellow Springs, OH, a college town that I knew during my time living in nearby Dayton as a happy, hippie kind of place, where peace signs and tie-dye abound.

  Though you might expect plenty of support around that area for marijuana legalization efforts, there are many people coming out against a measure that will be on the ballot this November, which would make Ohio the fifth state to legalize recreational and medical marijuana.

  One 25-year-old woman who says she’s all for legalizing pot is one of those people opposed to the amendment.

  “I would rather take the minor misdemeanor fine than let someone have such a massive monopoly in my state,” she says.

  She and others who are generally pro-pot have taken issue with a group called ResponsibleOhio that’s pushing the initiative big time with a $20 million legalization campaign. The word “monopoly” has popped up amid opponents of the measure because it specifies only 10 locations in Ohio where growing pot would be allowed, and there are just 10 groups of investors who have laid claim to those spots. Basically, NPR’s Lewis Wallace notes, “they are paying to try to amend the Ohio Constitution to grant themselves pot growing rights.”

  The group’s director doesn’t see it that way, however. Ian James says marijuana growing shouldn’t be treated like any old vegetable garden, because produce doesn’t make you high and pot does. Limiting the proposal to only 10 locations makes it easier to regulate and keep an eye on, and later a state-run control board can always add more locations.

  “It’s certainly not a monopoly when thousands of Ohioans will be able to own and operate their own retail stores, their own testing facilities, their own manufacturing facilities,” he says.

  Instead of voting this measure in, another group called Ohioans To End Prohibition is pushing for a different amendment next year that would create a free market for growers.

  Pot supporters want legal pot and a bustling marijuana business in Ohio, says the young woman who spoke to NPR, but “not at the cost of putting that squarely into a few pockets. That’s just as bad as it is right now, where the money’s already in a few people’s pockets.

  Fears Of Marijuana ‘Monopoly’ In Ohio Undercut Support For Legalization [All Things Considered]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist