PREMATURE PUT-DOWN OF BAR SMOKING BAN

SO MUCH for backbone. Only months after the state Assembly finally showed
the courage to ban smoking in California bars, its members caved in to the
tobacco industry and angry smokers.

Last week's 42-to-24 vote reversing the ban comes only four weeks after it
took effect, hardly enough time to seriously make the claim that bar
business is hurting and jobs are in jeopardy, as ban opponents are
attempting.

Everybody knew there would be a hue and cry on January 1, when bar patrons
were told to snuff out their cigarettes. But a month cannot possibly allow
for a solid, objective assessment about whether the doomsday predictions of
destroyed businesses have any validity.

The real reason for the reversal probably has more to do with the fact that
this is an election year and the tobacco industry has very deep pockets.

If restaurants are any indication, the unwelcome mat for puffers will not
affect profits. Restaurants have not suffered because they rid their
establishments of toxic cigarette fumes, and lawmakers know that. But if
the bill by Assemblyman Edward Vincent, D-Inglewood, is passed by the
Senate and signed by the governor, Californians may never get a true answer
as to the effect of a ban. Although a number of bars have voluntarily gone
smokeless in recent years, it is unlikely that either bar owners or law
enforcement would enforce a ban that they knew would be dissolved within a
year. Vincent's bill would take effect in January 1999.

What should not get lost in the debate -- and now it's up to the Senate to
show the spine that a majority of Assembly members lack -- is the issue of
health. Secondhand smoke kills. It kills almost 5,000 Californians a year,
and a contained saloon with smokers is not going to help reduce that tragic
statistic, especially among the 800,000 bar and club employees who are on
the receiving end of the noxious smoke for hours on end.

Key to the legislative outcome will be who Senate President Pro Tem John
Burton names to head the Judiciary Committee. Burton, who opposes
rescinding the ban, was chairman of the committee last year and led the
charge against delaying the ban until 1999. The committee needs an equally
strong anti-smoking chairman this year to stop the cynical rescission.

California demonstrated enlightened leadership when it became the first
state to ban smoking in bars. It should not back off now.

)1998 San Francisco Chronicle