A statewide smoking ban, with exemptions, is headed to the full Senate for the first time after a committee heard almost four hours of testimony Wednesday and approved the bill 8-2.
“This bill gets us not all the way there. The conundrum is how long do we wait?” said Sen. Tim Lanane, D-Anderson. “If we wait until we have a perfect bill, I’m not sure we would ever get there.”
House Bill 1149 covers hotels, businesses, restaurants, bowling alleys and other public buildings. And it allows local ordinances to be more restrictive than state law.
It does include exemptions for the state’s casinos, cigar and hookah bars; retail tobacco shops; and private clubs that have voted to retain smoking provided minors aren’t allowed. It also gives bars and taverns an 18-month delay to prepare for implementation.
The drive behind the legislation is to protect employees in public places from working in conditions that are hazardous to their health.
Twenty-nine states have comprehensive smoking bans, and 22 of those cover bars and taverns.
Rep. Eric Turner, R-Cicero, author of the legislation, said he would prefer a bill without exemptions but it isn’t politically possible.
“What I’ve concluded if we can’t protect 100 percent (of employees) then we can protect 95 percent or 90 percent,” he said. “Some will say it’s all or nothing. I would prefer to reach out and try to get 95 percent.”
Those who testified against the bill hammered on what they see as the inequality of the exemptions for private clubs and casinos but not local bars and taverns.
New Castle bar owner Jeff Viars said while major cities might have hundreds of bars to choose from, his town has 13 private clubs and six bars, including his own.
“If you make it to where the clubs, who are my biggest competition, are allowed to smoke and we’re not, you are putting us out of business plain and simple,” he said.
Veteran Charles Rogers said health hazards are everywhere.
“We can’t all walk around in a bubble,” he said. “I would like to reserve the rights of the people in this country to have a choice. We’re losing our choices. Everything is being taken away.”
Those supporting the ban argued the rights of a minority of smokers shouldn’t trump the rights of non-smokers to a healthy environment in a building open to the public.
Kevin O’Flaherty, co-chairman of the Indiana Campaign for Smokefree Air, said the ban is just one of many laws that every business must obey to ensure the health and safety of patrons, including labor laws, insurance, fire safety and wages.
He said the bar owners have expressed a fear of the unknown and increased regulation but evidence shows no mass closures. In some states, employment and revenue have increased.
“We’re ready to do this,” O’Flaherty said. “It represents real progress … and protects the vast majority of Hoosiers with an effective law.”
Indiana’s state health commissioner endorsed the bill on behalf of Gov. Mitch Daniels.
The two senators who voted “no” are among the most conservative in the caucus – Sen. Mike Delph, R-Carmel, and Sen. Brent Waltz, R-Greenwood.
Waltz said by placing exemptions in the bill the legislature is saying the lives of some workers are worth more than others.
“I agree it’s the political reality,” he said. “But I think it’s very bad public policy.”
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