A couple of bar owners are celebrating a ruling to overturn the conviction of a Treherne bar owner who refused to enforce the province's smoking ban.

Jamie Betle of Carberry is glad the government is being forced to provide an even playing field between businesses on and off the reserves. 

 

He hopes the judge's order to change the law will impact him positively.  Because Robert Jenkinson's charges were dropped, Betle hopes his convictions will also be forgotten. 

 

Gary Derosiers of the Manitoba Association of Rural Hotel Owners stresses the smoking ban was unfair and discriminatory to races, as it allowed smoking in reserve establishments. 

 

Derosiers is open to the government making changes to the act as long as it's enforced on the province as a whole.