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Senate passes smoking ban Wednesday, Apr 5, 2006 By Wesley Brown and Doug Thompson Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Legislation to ban smoking in indoor workplaces statewide breezed through the Senate on Tuesday A 30-4 vote sent Gov. Mike Huckabee's proposal to the House. Sen. Shawn Womack, R-Mountain Home, said he voted for the measure in honor of his father. "Today is my father's birthday. He would be 65 today had he lived," Womack said. "He died at age 50 from smoking-related causes, after starting smoking when he was 14 years old." Senate Bill 19 By Sen. Tracy Steele, D-North Little Rock, would ban smoking indoors in most public places statewide. Supporters of the so-called Clean Indoor Act of 2006 said the proposal would improve public health. Steele compared the fight to protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke to the civil rights movement decades ago. "This (movement) is about the right to breathe clean air," Steele told the Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee, which endorsed the measure just hours before it easily passed the Senate. Dr. Joe Thompson, the state's chief health officer, testified that banning smoking in the workplace would immediately improve public health. Similar laws passed in Helena, Mont., in 2003 and Pueblo, Colo., in 2004 resulted in a 30 percent reduction in heart attacks in those communities, he said. Eighteen other states have passed similar laws. "There is an urgency to pass (SB19) because there are 2,500 heart attacks in Arkansas that we could avoided in the next 12 months," Thompson told the committee, adding that 18 other states have already pass similar laws. Dr. Gary Wheeler, a pediatrician at Children's Hospital of Little Rock, blamed secondhand smoke for more than 3 million ear infections and serious childhood ailments such as pneumonia, meningitis and sudden infant death syndrome nationwide. "It is hard for me to communicate the number of children I see with these problems," he told the committee. Critics of the measure said it infringed upon the rights of business owners. Sen. Jerry Taylor, D-Pine Bluff, argued before the Senate that the bill was "a good idea that goes too far." "Every is concerned about the health aspects, and rightly so, but this bill was crafted hastily with not a lot of thought about the cost factors," Sen. Steve Faris, D-Morrilton, told the Public Health committee earlier. A coalition of business owners rallied against the smoking ban prior to the Senate vote, calling the measure "un-American." "This smoking ban that has been proposed by the governor will be devastating to businesses across the state," said Montine McNulty, executive director of the Arkansas Hospitality Association. Dee Fizer, owner of Fizer Truck and Tractor in Little Rock, said the bill was another example of government interference in private business. "This is the same ol' pork barrel (politics) that America is sick of," said Fizer, a nonsmoker. "Most small business owners just want to be left alone. I, and I alone, should decide what goes own in my business." However, supporters wearing anti-smoking buttons and carrying signs pro-smoking ban signs crowded the committee room and rallied before and after the panel's 5-2 vote sent the measure to the Senate. A coalition of ministers, the Interfaith Alliance, also held a Capitol news conference to support the bill. The ban would cover all indoor workplaces except for private homes not used for day care or any health care activity, designated hotel "smoking rooms" and small businesses with fewer than three employees. Also, businesses that sell tobacco products and gaming floors at Oaklawn Park thoroughbred track in Hot Springs and Southland Greyhound Park in West Memphis won't be affected by the new regulations. All state-licensed restaurants and bars that prohibit customers under 21 years old also are exempt from the new regulations if secondhand smoke does not filter into areas where smoking is banned. However, those same businesses must display a Health Department-approved health warning sign in designated smoking areas. |
