By FRED CONNORS
\nJeanette Wakim stands in front of the Tropic club on Wheeling Island on Thursday after a magistrate ruled
\n\t\t
\nthat the furnishings of the video lottery room are not under the control of the Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department and its smoking ban rules.<\/p>\n
WHEELING \u00e2\u20ac\u201d The Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department cannot regulate furniture within a video lottery room, a magistrate ruled Thursday.<\/p>\n
Allegations that Jeanette Wakim, owner of the Tropic on Wheeling Island, violated the Wheeling-Ohio County Clean Indoor Air Regulation were dismissed during the hearing.<\/p>\n
Ohio County Magistrate Charles Murphy dismissed the case against Wakim\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s business, Foundation Corp., after saying the Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department overstepped its authority in deciding what equipment or furniture is permitted inside a video lottery room.<\/p>\n
Foundation Corp. was cited in January for alleged video lottery room violations at the Tropic on Wheeling Island.<\/p>\n
The complaint alleged the video lottery room was equipped with a pool table, bowling and dart machines, Mega Touch game machine, a juke box and a television set.<\/p>\n
Murphy said equipment in a business is not connected to public health.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is a no-brainer,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Murphy said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It is as clear as the nose on my face.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Assistant Ohio County Prosecutor Shawn Turak said the decision will be appealed to the circuit court level.<\/p>\n
After the hearing, Wheeling-Ohio County Medical Director William Mercer said he was disappointed with the decision and agreed it will be appealed.<\/p>\n
Also speaking after the hearing, defense attorney Paul Harris said he and his client were pleased.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We applaud the magistrate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision, but Dr. Mercer should have been sanctioned for what he put my client (Jeannette Wakim) through,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Harris said.<\/p>\n
Harris said there was no allegation about smoking in the complaint; rather it concerned furniture.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think Dr. Mercer should be fired and all of the health department board of directors should be removed by the Ohio County commissioners and Wheeling City Council,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Harris said.<\/p>\n
This was the third of five clean indoor air violation cases settled. In unrelated complaints, two other Ohio County business owners were convicted of violations and fined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By FRED CONNORS Jeanette Wakim stands in front of the Tropic club on Wheeling Island on Thursday after a magistrate ruled<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-furniture-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3819\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}