Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Subcommittee OKs indoor smoking ban, most restrictive of 3
The full Senate committee is expected to take up the bill when it meets Thursday.
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From The Roanoke Times
RICHMOND -- A Senate subcommittee endorsed the most restrictive of three potential indoor smoking bans on Monday.
The trio of variations includes:
n Senate Bill 202, which gives each Virginia locality the choice of whether to ban smoking.
n SB 501, which bans it in restaurants.
n SB 298, which bans smoking in just about all indoor areas except for private homes.
The Senate Education and Health Committee subgroup voted 3-2 to recommend the last bill.
Sen. George Barker, D-Fairfax County, was a key vote in the subcommittee favoring the more restrictive SB 298.
"This is a public health initiative," Barker said. "That's why I think it needs to be addressed broadly rather than more narrowly."
Sen. John Miller, D-Newport News, said that over the course of the debate during the past few years, he has changed his mind on the issue.
"I started this journey believing that government is too intrusive in our lives to begin with and that we ought not to be telling private business people how to run their businesses, especially regarding a legal activity," Miller said. "It has been very difficult for me, but I believe the science as a former smoker. I think there's a greater good. If we're going to protect the citizens of the commonwealth, this is a great way to do it."
Any bill to ban smoking will likely face stiff challenges. In 2006 and 2007, then-Sen. Brandon Bell of Roanoke County made a smoking ban similar to SB 298 the main priority of his legislative agenda but his effort went unrewarded.
Sen. Frank Ruff, R-Mecklenburg County, is one of the subcommittee members who voted Monday against any smoking ban -- and for one of the main reasons the legislation has been hard to pass. Ruff, whose district includes many Southside tobacco farmers, said he believes that private business owners can take care of the issue on their own.
"Every week more and more restaurants are dropping allowing people to smoke," Ruff said. "I think it's a major mistake to take law enforcement and put them in this kind of setting when the market will take care of itself."
The real test for any bill to ban smoking will be how it does in the House. The past two years smoking bills have failed to clear the committee level there.
The House did approve Del. Morgan Griffith's bill last year to require signs to be posted in all smoking restaurants, but after Gov. Tim Kaine amended it to make it a smoking ban, the House voted it down and Griffith said he'd not carry the bill again.
The full Senate committee is expected to take up the smoking bills when it meets Thursday.
