Senate appears to support broad smoking ban

LINCOLN (AP) — A strict, statewide smoking ban cities and counties couldn’t duck got strong support from lawmakers Thursday as they moved a step closer to a final decision.

On a 33-13 vote, the Legislature approved an amendment that would bar cities and counties from opting out of a ban on smoking in bars, restaurants and all other workplaces in the state except for retail tobacco shops and places where smoking research is done. Hotel rooms also would be exempted.

A final vote is expected in the next two weeks.

Opponents on Thursday appeared ready to keep fighting the measure and are expected to offer amendments to soften it, while supporters said the vote signaled eventual approval of a ban.

“This is huge,” Mark Welsch, leader of the Nebraska-based Group to Alleviate Smoking Pollution said of Thursday’s action. “With 33 votes ... I hate to say it’s going to pass, because anything can happen, but it looks like it will.”

Should Nebraska adopt a strict ban, it would join 21 other states, according to the American Lung Society.

Approval of the amendment is a sharp turn from last year. Then, lawmakers in favor of a strict ban agreed to a local opt-out clause, believing they needed to make concessions to gain enough votes.

Some of those against the concessions argued that allowing the opt-out clause would actually hurt, not help, businesses. The fear was that customers who wanted to smoke would abandon their favorite bars and restaurants for those in towns that would opt out of a statewide ban.

Others said the local control cities often seek might lead to emotional, divisive debate such as Lincoln experienced three years ago. City voters passed a smoking ban similar to the one before state lawmakers (LB395). It is sponsored by Sen. Joel Johnson of Kearney.

“As a former small-town mayor ... I just think that’s going to cause so many problems,” Sen. Dave Pankonin of Louisville said of letting communities avoid a ban. “I think you’ll have communities and counties in an uproar.”

Opponents of a strict ban have said it would amount to bullying by the state against businesses that should be allowed to decide whether anyone can smoke on their properties.

Ban supporters countered by arguing that, in the name of public health, government often restricts what businesses can do.

That argument doesn’t wash, said Sen. Russ Karpisek of Wilber, owner of a meat market.

Existing laws “are to protect my customers from me, not my customers from other customers.”

“It should be the business owner’s choice,” Karpisek said.

“When are they going to stop telling us what to do?” said Les Agena, a smoker and owner of a business where smoking is allowed, The Corner Bar in Sterling, population 500.

While unhappy with the bill, Agena doesn’t think it will hurt business much — as long as the amendment approved Thursday remains.

”Where are people going to go to avoid a ban,” he asked, “if it’s every small town?”

On the Web

Nebraska Legislature: http://www.nebraskalegislature.gov