LANDMARK BILL LACKS FIRE TO CREATE UNIFORM SMOKING LAW

Last August, the city of Sacramento granted a business license for a new
Cigarettes 4 Less store on Folsom Boulevard.

The clean but cramped store in a tiny strip mall on Folsom offers virtually
any kind of tobacco product imaginable, including discount-priced packs of
Marlboro reds for $1.87, about 60 cents less than many competitors.

Business must be good, because the city issued a license for a second store
in April, and the miniature tobacco empire joined numerous other similar
stores in the area ranging from Cigarette Liquor Express to The Cigarette
Store to Cigarettes Cheaper.

But with the full force of local, state and federal officials now bearing
down on Big Tobacco with tax hikes, new smoking restrictions and
multibillion-dollar lawsuits, cigarettes are getting anything but cheaper.

Already, some estimates claim there are at least 1,238 laws or ordinances
nationwide designed to restrict the use or sale of tobacco in some way,
with California considered the nation's leader in most areas.

"There is no state in which there aren't restrictions," said John Banzhaf
III, executive director of Action on Smoking and Health, a Washington-based
anti-smoking group. "California is the leader. They have banned smoking in
virtually every public place, virtually every workplace, and that includes
all restaurants."

But the extent of the laws and the enforcement of them varies widely from
state to state, with some of the most restrictive measures cropping up in
cities or towns fed up with a lack of action by their legislatures.

"We are moving very slowly in many, many areas and it's obviously
tremendously difficult to battle this out on a county-by-county and
city-by-city basis," Banzhaf said. "People want uniformity, and the amount
of protection that you have should be uniform not only because people feel
they are entitled to that protection, but also to avoid confusion."

That is part of the theory behind the landmark tobacco bill now being
debated in the Senate, which would create sweeping new changes in tobacco
laws and add large tax hikes to the cost of buying a pack of 20 cigarettes.

With all the proposed changes, however, from new warning labels to
safeguards to keep children from gaining access to cigarettes, the pending
bill will do little to create a uniform law on when and where it is legal
to smoke.

The bill's exemptions for restaurants, bars, hotel rooms and other areas
leave it to state or local authorities to determine how restrictive each
area should be, and the evidence is that such laws will continue to vary
greatly around the nation.

In California, for instance, a traveling businessman can go from any
restaurant to any bar to any public bus to any airport and never run the
risk of inhaling secondhand smoke except when he walks by the ubiquitous
groups of smokers that collect outside such places.

But after a short (nonsmoking) flight to a place like Phoenix, he will find
himself in a state where smoking is allowed in many restaurants and
businesses, and where the only way to find a smoke-free bite to eat is to
study the local law books.

The Phoenix suburb of Mesa, for instance, bans smoking in restaurants, but
most other cities in the state do not, according to state Health Department
spokesman Brad Christensen.

The result is that diners in Arizona will hear a phrase that hasn't existed
in California for years: Smoking or nonsmoking?

The differences illustrate how varied laws can be from state to state, city
to city or neighborhood to neighborhood, and how local politics and
influences can affect tobacco laws.

In North Carolina, for instance, where the multibillion-dollar industry
makes it the nation's leading tobacco state, the only statewide smoking law
is a 1993 measure that requires at least 20 percent of space in government
buildings to be set aside for smokers. Most local ordinances tougher than
that were swept aside by a court decision, leaving smoking restrictions
mostly voluntary for restaurants, bars and other areas.

The tobacco tax in North Carolina is 5 cents a pack, compared to 37 cents
in California, and North Carolina is one of only nine states that have not
filed suit against the industry to reclaim health care costs stemming from
smoking.

In Minnesota, however, where there is no tobacco industry, the tobacco tax
is 48 cents a pack and smoking is restricted in restaurants. The state's
lawsuit against tobacco firms also resulted in early May in a $6.5 billion
settlement agreement that severely restricts juveniles' access to
cigarettes and how the companies can advertise their products.

The major battleground still is seen as Washington, D.C., where officials
are hoping to implement federal laws restricting tobacco use. Currently,
the only major federal restriction on the use of tobacco is a recently
approved measure that requires store clerks to request identification from
anyone trying to buy cigarettes who appears to be younger than 27.

The rest is up to the states or local governments, and it is clear that the
tidal wave of anti-tobacco sentiment in recent years has had a varying
impact around the nation.
At least 30 states now have some sort of restriction against smoking in
restaurants, according to the Office on Smoking and Health at the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention.

But three of those states have no enforcement authority at all, according
to figures as of March 1997 that the center has compiled. And only 23 of
the 31 with restrictions call for any penalty against first-time offenders.
The possible fines against the restaurants themselves can range from
nothing to $300 (in Alaska and Washington, D.C.).

Only 19 states restrict the use of tobacco in private workplaces, and the
restrictions in certains types of places vary widely.

In day care centers, for instance, only 28 states have laws regarding the
use of tobacco, two fewer than have laws about smoking inside grocery
stores.

Only Alaska and New Hampshire limit smoking in prisons, and those
restrictions allow it in designated areas.

This hodgepodge of laws and proposed laws (there are dozens of bills before
the California Legislature currently dealing with tobacco issues and
countless others proposed nationwide) had led to confusion over what is
legal where. And both sides blame the other for supporting the continuation
of such a system, with no uniform national law on tobacco use.

Anti-smoking forces say tobacco companies like the fact that they can
influence local leaders against new laws or ordinances, and pro-tobacco
lobbyists say the same is true for their opponents.

"The extreme anti-smoking groups very much don't want federal legislation,"
said Gary Auxier, senior vice president for the National Smokers Alliance,
a Washington-area group formed with the backing of the tobacco industry.
"They like trying to work their little acts at the local level, and that's
their preferred modus operandi.

"They also blow way out of proportion the reality of some of the situations
around the country."

Among the 1,200 or more existing tobacco laws or ordinances, for instance,
there are many that simply are not being enforced or do not really affect
smokers, Auxier said.

And the most notable example -- and by far most controversial -- is the
California ban on smoking in bars that took effect in January.

Although officials say they will enforce violations, it is not difficult to
find saloons in many places where smoking still occurs inside and where
enforcement comes only if a patron complains to health officials.

But there is no doubt that law has had an impact, both on customers forced
to smoke outside and on bar owners who say they have had to deal with the
loss of customers and with ordering patrons outside to light up.

"Pretty much everyone we talk to views the California thing as way too
extreme," Auxier said. "And we don't see a big movement of any sort to
follow the California model at this point."

Instead, the major threat now facing smokers appears to be the lawsuits the
industry faces nationwide and the pending federal legislation.

To date, 41 states have filed suit against tobacco companies seeking
compensation for health-related costs and four -- Florida, Minnesota,
Mississippi and Texas -- have settled claims totaling more than $30
billion. The other suits are pending, including one by California and
another filed by San Francisco that includes Sacramento and nine other
counties.

Adding to the potential costs for smokers is the proposed federal
legislation that will increase the cost of smokes through tax hikes that
would add $1.10 to a pack by 2003.
That provision led tobacco firms to post huge fliers at cigarette outlets
denouncing the bill and warning "the cost of a single pack of cigarettes
could soar to $5!"

"You'll always be able to sell cigarettes to someone," said Ali Hassan, the
manager of the Folsom Boulevard Cigarettes 4 Less store, which is tucked in
next door to a pet grooming shop and coin laundry. "But the main thing that
worries us is these are soon going to be very valuable items. There's going
to be a lot of theft and vandalism."

In the past three months alone, Hassan said, the tobacco wars have forced
cigarette manufacturers to boost prices several times, jacking the cost of
a carton of Marlboros up $1.25 over the past three months to $18.75.

The result of those price hikes, as well as the attendant tightening up of
where and when people can smoke, has left customers and businesses that
depend on them literally fuming.

"They hate it," Hassan said. "They are so frustrated. They think smoking is
something that's private, just like they're having their rights taken from
them."

Tobacco companies continue their efforts to fight back, providing stores
such as Hassan's with postcards for protesting smokers to fill out that are
later picked up by the tobacco firms and forwarded to Congress by the
thousands.

So, even as legislatures nationwide wrestle with proposed new anti-smoking
laws, the major threat that smokers fear is the one now taking shape in
Washington as the Senate debates smoking legislation.

"Far and away," said Auxier, "smokers are most concerned about this tax
increase they're going to get saddled with."

Copyright ) 1998 The Sacramento Bee

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)