A
Smoke-free Texas?
State senator
proposes statewide smoking ban.
By Corrie
MacLaggan
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, January 18, 2007
No smoking would be allowed
inside public buildings in Texas — including restaurants,
bars and workplaces — if a legislative proposal is
approved to make the Lone Star State one of 18 states with
sweeping bans on smoking.
"It is a public health
crisis and a very expensive one," said state Sen.
Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, who is spearheading the proposal.
He said he plans to file a bill at the end of the month and
that he will be joined at that time by a coalition of
anti-smoking groups as he unveils details.
The proposal is sure to
trigger a fight, but not about whether smoking is bad for
you; most people agree that it is. While anti-smoking forces
are billing the plan as a way to ensure Texas workers get
equal access to safe working conditions, defenders of
smokers' rights say the government is overstepping its role.
It's an argument playing out
across the country. A decade ago, just a few states had
banned smoking. Now, between city ordinances and state laws,
about half of Americans live in areas where smoking is not
allowed inside public places, according to James Gray, Texas
government relations director of the American Cancer
Society.
"The bottom line is this
country is going to be smoke-free within five to eight
years," Gray said. "The question is: When is that
going to be in Texas?"
In Texas, where a $1-per-pack
cigarette tax increase went into effect this month, pushing
another smoking-related law through the Legislature could be
tricky. And opponents will argue that this is an issue of
personal liberty.
"If 20 percent of the
population is smokers, why is it so terrible there's a few
places they can go and gather?" asked Marc Levin, an
attorney who represents Austin bar owners fighting the
city's 16-month-old ordinance in court. "No one would
disagree that it's a bad habit. But there are a lot of bad
habits, and we sometimes have to draw the line about what is
the role of government."
The very idea of a statewide
smoking ban irks Larry Kelso, owner of the Old Coupland Inn
and Dancehall about 30 miles northeast of Austin. There,
patrons can smoke in the century-old dance hall, and in the
restaurant, and in the bed and breakfast, and on the
sidewalk and anywhere else they want to smoke, Kelso said.
"Don't try to legislate
what people can do in public places," he said.
"You have kind of hit on a sore spot on me. What's
next? Are they going to tell us we can't smoke in our own
house?"
The proposed state law would
override Austin's slightly less strict citywide smoking ban.
The city ordinance exempts bingo halls and fraternal
organizations and allows smoking until 2012 in 10
restaurants that have installed filtration systems under the
existing ordinance.
Austin and El Paso are among
some 50 Texas cities that already have comprehensive
no-smoking ordinances, and Houston just passed one. Dallas
has one that exempts bars.
Several Central Texas cities,
including Round Rock, Leander, Georgetown, Rollingwood, West
Lake Hills and New Braunfels, also have significant
smoke-free ordinances. But it's OK to light up inside
restaurants, bars and some workplaces in other cities,
including Cedar Park and Pflugerville.
Local ordinances have been
chipping away at Texas smokers' ability to light up in
public for the past 15 years. Most cities have some kind of
smoking restrictions, said Gray of the American Cancer
Society.
City ordinances have evolved
from creating smoking and non-smoking areas in the late
1980s to adding ventilation systems in the early to mid
1990s to banning smoking in some places in the late 1990s
and the early part of this decade. Now, in the past few
years, some cities and states have started banning smoking
in all public places — even, in some cases, bars.
"People are saying, 'You
know what? There's no safe level of secondhand smoke. We
want to resolve this issue once and for all,' " Gray
said.
In addition to indoor smoking
bans, some cities and states also ban smoking in certain
outdoor areas.
The smoke-free movement was
buoyed last year by a report by U.S. Surgeon General Richard
H. Carmona that said the health effects of secondhand smoke
are worse than previously thought.
"The debate is
over," Carmona said in issuing the 700-page report.
"The science is clear. Secondhand smoke is not a mere
annoyance but a serious health hazard."
A Texas smoking ban "is
about creating a workplace where folks do not have to
breathe a known carcinogen," Gray said. It would apply
to any business with employees.
For Austin-based singer Sara
Hickman, who supported the capital city's ordinance, her
workplace is often restaurants and bars around the country.
She prefers playing smoke-free venues because smoke, she
said, irritates her asthma and allergies. Hickman said she
cannot afford health insurance.
"When people are sitting
and smoking in front of me, they're not realizing that
they're leaving the residue of their health choice in my
lungs, and I become financially responsible for it,"
she said.
One smoker in McAllen, where
it's legal to light up inside many public places, said it
wouldn't bother him if he wasn't allowed to smoke in
restaurants; he could go outside.
"A bar or a nightclub
would be a completely different issue," said Alan
Fiszman, a political consultant who said he smokes around
eight cigarettes a day. "I don't really see why
cigarettes would be banned in an establishment that already
serves something most health officials would deem
unhealthy."
As Ellis works to push his
proposal, one challenge may be convincing his colleagues
that smoking bans don't hurt business.
On that, there is some
debate.
A 2003 report by the state
health department showed that the then-year-old ban in El
Paso had "no significant adverse changes" in
restaurant and bar revenues.
"El Paso has one of the
strongest ordinances, and the town didn't turn out the
lights," said Joel Romo, vice president of advocacy for
the Texas affiliate of the American Heart Association.
But Levin, the bar owners'
lawyer, points to declining alcohol sales at Austin bars
that allowed smoking until the ordinance went into effect
— an average loss of $5,700 per month, according to state
sales tax data.
Ellis, who hasn't found a
House sponsor for his bill, says he's ready for what will
likely be a contentious debate. A statewide smoking ban has
been proposed before in Texas, but not with support from a
coalition like the one Ellis is working with, which includes
the American Heart Association, the American Lung
Association and the American Cancer Society.
Under Ellis' proposal,
"people can still smoke — it's just less convenient
and less likely they'll cause serious bodily harm to someone
else.
"It's always a battle
when you're taking on big tobacco, no doubt about it, but
it's worth the fight," Ellis said.
cmaclaggan@statesman.com;
445-3548
With this story on
Statesman.com: Find information on your city in the Texas
Smoke-Free Ordinance Database and learn more about the Smoke-Free
Texas coalition.
By the numbers: Tobacco in
Texas
* About 20 percent of adult
Texans smoke
* Texas spends $5.8 billion
each year in health expenses directly related to tobacco,
and $349 million in health expenses related to secondhand
smoke.
* Tobacco is the No. 1 cause
of premature death in Texas, and for every eight people who
die of tobacco in Texas, one is a non-smoker. People exposed
to secondhand smoke are at risk for developing cancer, heart
disease and lung disease.
Sources: American Cancer
Society, Office of State Sen. Rodney Ellis
Find
this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/region/legislature/stories/01/19/19smoking.html
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