The 2005 Battle of the Smoking Bans heats up this week in Olympia.
Smokers and owners of establishments they frequent are primed for a duel with nonsmokers and workers of those same enterprises, or ones like them.
The arena is the Legislature, where lawmakers will debate whether lighting up should be limited to walled-off corners of bars, bowling alleys and bingo halls, or banned completely.
State Rep. Joe McDermott, D-West Seattle, is pushing a statewide ban on smoking in all public places.
“Your right to smoke ends at the entrance to my airways,” said McDermott, who said he has smoked fewer than 10 cigarettes in his life.
Hearings on both partial and complete bans are scheduled Wednesday in the Senate and Thursday in the House.
For McDermott, the issue is worker safety. He reasons that no person should be forced to inhale cigarette fumes as part of their job.
Economically, he predicted the state would spend less money treating smoking-related illnesses and lose little on the revenue side. The economies of California and New York didn’t crumble after they enacted bans, he noted.
He’s backed by the American Lung Association, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association and “anybody who wants to keep people alive,” but faces opposition within his own party.
Last year, McDermott’s bill for a ban reached the Democratic-controlled Rules Committee, where it languished and died. Credit the kill to Rep. Bill Grant, D-Walla Walla, a wheat farmer, with an assist by House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle.
If circumstances repeat themselves, Grant said he might tie up McDermott’s bill again.
“I get tired of telling people what they can do. Let them make up their own minds,” he said.
Grant has signed on to a bill creating designated smoking areas in bars, restaurants and other businesses. That approach is backed by the Washington Restaurant Association.
Regardless, they’re worried about Initiative 901, which calls for a statewide ban. It will surely be on the November ballot should McDermott’s bill fail.
While McDermott tackles where smoking occurs, Rep. Rodney Tom, R-Eastgate, is targeting what smoking costs.
This week, he proposed increasing the cigarette tax from $1.42 to $2.50 a pack. That would generate $300 million this biennium for the cash-strapped state, he said.
He’s motivated by another figure: $12.70. He said that’s what a pack of cigarettes costs the state in health care expenses. Boosting the tax would force smokers to pay a greater share of the cost.
Republican leaders are in no mood for a ban or a tax. They consider both Draconian measures that curb personal freedom.
McDermott and Tom say they aren’t out to quash anyone’s spirit. But there’s no doubt their tax-and-ban approach aims to make smoking a pleasure that is no longer cheap or convenient to enjoy.
Reporter Jerry Cornfield’s column on politics runs every Sunday. He can be heard at 7 a.m. Monday on the Morning Show on KSER 90.7 FM. He can be reached at 360-352-8623 or jcornfield@heraldnet.com.
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