UPHILL FIGHT FOR PUSH TO END SMOKING BAN

Chairwoman of Senate panel tells author of bill to let bar patrons light up
to "get over it'

SACRAMENTO -- "Get over it, and get used to it."

Senate Health Committee Chairwoman Diane Watson, D-Los Angeles, offered
that advice Wednesday to people angry about the ban on smoking in bars.

Watson's nine-member committee may be the last stop for a bill to rescind
the 3-month-old smoking restrictions. The measure, AB297, was passed by the
Assembly in January, but faces an arduous fight in the Senate Health
Committee.

During a three-hour hearing Wednesday, the committee heard from bar owners
who have laid off workers after losing customers, non-smoking San Francisco
waiters who nevertheless experienced smoking-related health problems and
health groups that warned of the dangers of second-hand smoke.

It was the first hearing for AB297 in the more skeptical Senate. As far as
Watson was concerned, the smoking ban will stay in place.

"I think we've had a hearing and I don't think we need to bring it up
again. I think it needs to stay here, and I think the author (of the bill,
Assemblyman Edward Vincent, D- Inglewood) needs to get over it and get on
with his life."

The issue isn't entirely dead, however.

Vincent refused to attend Wednesday's hearing, so the committee couldn't
vote. If he can persuade a majority to vote with him before the summer, the
bill could advance.

Since Jan. 1, it has been illegal to smoke in bars and card clubs in
California. The law was written, its author said, to protect waitresses,
waiters and bartenders who inhale second-hand smoke and suffer dramatically
higher rates of cancer and heart disease; it is a delayed result of a law
approved several years ago that already has eliminated most indoor
workplace smoking in the state.

It is estimated that 4,200 people in California die every year from
inhaling second-hand smoke.

Before smoking was banned in restaurants two years ago, San Francisco
waiter Bob Davis said he suffered from bronchitis and had to use an
inhaler.

Davis, who brought the committee a petition with 300 signatures, said
waiters are enthusiastic about the law because they don't have to walk
through a wall of smoke in bars attached to restaurants.

"A lot of the (news) coverage comes from the point of view of workers who
are against the law," Davis said. "My experience is that workers are
ecstatic about the law."

Carol Brookman, owner of the First and Last Chance Saloon in Oakland, said
she weaned her customers off smoking by stopping the sale of cigarettes in
November and taking away ashtrays in December.

"We didn't have any problem with people at all," Brookman said.

But for the bar owners who have besieged lawmakers with complaints and
letters, the ban isn't about health, it's about civil liberty. One bar
owner likened an underground revolt against the restrictions to the Boston
Tea Party.

Faye Sales, manager of the four-employee J.P.'s Club in Willits, said
police have "threatened" her by writing letters and doing walk-throughs of
her bar five or six times a day to make sure patrons aren't smoking. All
her employees smoke.

"Why are we as bar employees being singled out when other businesses are
allowing their employees to work in truly hazardous environments," Sales
said.

Other bar owners said the new law has turned their businesses inside out,
and even prompted fights among patrons. "I have more people outside than I
have inside," said Dolores Austin, president of Dollzee's Clayton Club in
Contra Costa County. "When people go outside to smoke, there is a
confrontation (when they get back) because someone takes their bar stool."

)1998 San Francisco Examiner