Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Smoking debate smolders on
Democrats and Republicans in the Senate have resurrected efforts to ban smoking, though as in the past, many obstacles stand in their way.
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Nara Souza and Jorge Sampaio smoke Tuesday at Ernie's in downtown Roanoke. Souza thinks restaurants should have spots for both smokers and nonsmokers.
The bills
Three bills have been filed in the state Senate
- SB 202 Indoor Clean Air Act | Offers localities the option to ban smoking in restaurants.
- SB 298 Smoke Free Air Act | Bans smoking in most indoor places, with the exception of private homes, cars, home-based businesses, smoking-designated motel rooms, tobacconists, tobacco manufacturers and some nursing home rooms.
- SB 501 Indoor Clean Air Act | Bans smoking in restaurants statewide.
RICHMOND -- The push to ban smoking in restaurants and other indoor areas has continued into this year's General Assembly session, despite the departure of Brandon Bell, previously the standard-bearer for the issue, from the state Senate.
A group of Democratic and Republican senators has filed bills that present a variety of options to the legislature:
n One bill gives each Virginia locality the choice of whether to ban smoking.
n Another bans it in restaurants.
n A third bans smoking in just about all indoor areas except for private homes.
The bills seem to have grown from a push started in 2006, when Bell, a Republican from Roanoke County, was able to shepherd a bill to ban smoking in indoor areas through the Senate.
Last year, after the U.S. Surgeon General issued a report strongly condemning secondhand smoke, Bell was joined by four other legislators who filed similar bills in both the Senate and House of Delegates. An alternative approach proposed by Del. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, passed the General Assembly but was radically altered by Gov. Tim Kaine and subsequently defeated during the April veto session.
Two months later, Bell was defeated in a Republican primary by Ralph Smith, who went on to win election to the Senate.
Smoking bills still face dim prospects in the House of Delegates, which has generally killed smoking bans at the committee level. The exception was Griffith's bill, which also removed the requirement for nonsmoking sections and only required posted signs to allow smoking. Kaine's re-writing of the bill into an outright smoking ban, however, has made delegates even more reluctant to pass any smoking-related legislation.
"There's a fear that if we get a compromise bill, something very different will come back" from the governor, Griffith said.
But that doesn't seem to have dimmed enthusiasm for a ban. On Monday, nearly 100 people attended a public hearing to offer support for this year's legislation. Twenty-eight people spoke to the Senate subcommittee at the hearing; only five of them opposed a ban.
The ban supporters consisted largely of doctors, health advocacy groups and college students. They argued that secondhand cigarette smoke is deadly and kills 1,000 Virginians a year. They cast the proposed ban as a public health measure to protect restaurant patrons and workers alike.
Julia Torres Barden of Chesterfield said her son suffers from alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency and that exposure to secondhand smoke will greatly affect him. She said she's examined the state and federal constitutions but can't find a right to smoke in public.
"So I don't buy the argument that our state government doesn't have the right to ban smoking in public for fear of trampling on one's personal liberties," Barden told the subcommittee. "Along those lines I would also like to have it explained how a smoker's rights should supersede the rights of my nonsmoking sons to breathe cleaner air."
A junior at Randolph-Macon College addressed the subcommittee in her waitress outfit, complaining that her jobs in restaurants had worsened her asthma but that she had little choice to keep working through school.
Several restaurant owners and representatives from hospitality and restaurant advocacy groups, however, argued that the bans infringe on liberty.
Chris Savvides, owner of the Black Angus restaurant in Virginia Beach, said the General Assembly should let the market and individual restaurant owners make their own decisions, as smoking is "dying or thinning-out" anyway.
"The restaurant industry has already responded to this in a more rapid, more efficient and more equitable fashion, because the majority of restaurants are going smoke-free," Savvides said.
Barrett Hardiman, director of government relations for the Virginia Hospitality and Travel Association, said the increasing number of nonsmoking restaurants should give workers plenty of opportunity to seek out smoke-free employment options.
The subcommittee will meet to consider the bills again on Monday. The earliest the bills would reach the full Senate Education and Health Committee is a week from Thursday.
Staff writer Michael Sluss contributed to this story.
