BAN ON SMOKING IN BARS SURVIVES THREAT

Bill to roll back law tied up by Senate panel

SACRAMENTO -- Claiming people should be allowed to smoke in bars, Attorney
General Dan Lungren on Wednesday said if he were elected governor, he'd
sign a controversial bill to repeal the state law banning smoking in bars,
taverns and gaming rooms.

He probably won't have the chance, but that is not a statement on Lungren's
gubernatorial quest.

The Senate Health and Human Services Committee on Wednesday made it clear
that a bill to repeal the ban is going nowhere. Apparently sensing that,
Assemblyman Ed Vincent, D-Inglewood, refused to even show up for what
stretched into a three-hour hearing on his ban-repeal measure, AB 297. The
repeal was narrowly approved by the Assembly in January in a vote that
surprised anti-smoking forces.

Because of Vincent's absence, the committee did not formally vote on the
bill, technically killing it by, in political parlance, ``holding it with
the committee.''

But smoking foe and committee Chairwoman Diane Watson, D-Los Angeles, said
that even if Vincent requests a vote later on, any bill seeking an outright
appeal of the bar-smoking ban will not be approved.

``I don't think we need to bring it up again,'' Watson said. ``I think . .
the author needs to get over it and get on with his life.''

The hearing pitted bar owners and employees pleased with the new smoke-free
workplace against those who claim business has fallen, tips are down and
customers are staying away.

Kathy Mintun, a San Francisco bartender for more than 20 years and a
non-smoker, said business has actually increased since the ``fabulous'' law
went into effect.

``People have not stopped coming,'' Mintun said. ``They still come in, but
they go outside and have a cigarette, just like they do everywhere else.''

But opponents of the ban claim bars have seen drops of up to 30 percent in
liquor revenues. They also complained of harassment by health department
workers and police, who raid the bars or send threatening letters after
receiving complaints that smoking is being allowed in the bars.

``Smoking and drinking go hand in hand,'' said Delores Austin, president of
Dollzee's Clayton Club in Contra Costa County. At times, she said, ``I have
more people outside (smoking) than inside.''

The ban was enacted as a worker safety law, designed to protect employees
from the dangers of secondhand smoke. Similar bans went into effect in
recent years prohibiting smoking in offices, public buildings and
restaurants, but bars, taverns, cardrooms and bingo halls had received
extensions that ended Dec. 31.

Tom Rankin, president of the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, said the
bar ban should remain in place as a worker safety measure -- just as it is
in every other California workplace.

``I believe disease and death by cigarette smoke should not be a condition
of employment,'' Rankin said.

Lungren, speaking earlier in the day, said he thought ``there should be
some leeway in bars. I mean, what are we going to do with these folks?
Stamp big ``Ts'' across their foreheads, the new Scarlet Letter?''

Although a non-smoker -- joking that smoking in bars was OK but ``not while
I am around'' -- Lungren is the first gubernatorial candidate to say he
would sign a law repealing the ban. ``That's controversial, but what the
hell,'' Lungren said. ``While they're drinking themselves to death, let 'em
have a cigarette.''