ANNAPOLIS – A statewide smoking prohibition bill debuted Thursday, the second attempt by lawmakers to make all Maryland workplaces, including restaurants and bars, smoke free.
The Clean Indoor Air Act of 2004, sponsored by Sen. Ida Ruben, D-Montgomery, and Delegate Barbara Frush, D-Prince George’s, would make Maryland the seventh state with a statewide ban.
Passage would make the law effective Oct. 1. It will insure that all workers, including hospitality staff, have the right to work free of secondhand smoke.
“It’s primarily about individuals employed in the restaurant industry,” said Bonita Pennino, spokeswoman for the American Cancer Society, a member of the Smoke Free Maryland coalition. “It’s to make sure they’re protected, and to close the loop in previous legislation.”
State law now exempts restaurants from the statewide prohibition on smoking in the workplace.
Secondhand smoke is an asthma trigger and can exacerbate the conditions of the approximately 600,000 people in Maryland who have pulmonary disease, said Debra Kubecka, American Lung Association advocacy director.
Opponents labeled it a discriminatory bill that hurts business.
“We are strongly opposed to a statewide smoking ban because of the negative economic impact that such bans have on restaurants with significant bar business,” said Melvin Thompson, of the Restaurant Association of Maryland.
Supporters of the ban cite other smoke-free states, such as New York and California, as examples that the restaurant scene can survive – and even prosper – with a ban.
But the Restaurant Association disagrees.
“If lawmakers want to know the impact that a smoking ban might have, they needn’t look any further than Montgomery County,” said Thompson.
Three restaurants there have shut down since a countywide smoking ban took effect in October 2003, and owners attribute the closings to the ban, he said. Thompson said business at sports and billiards parlors is down 30 to 50 percent, and a lawsuit by one restaurant is still pending.
“Currently under state law, owners can make a restaurant non-smoking,” Thompson said. “They can, and many have. On this issue, the market is working itself out and there is no need for legislators to interfere with how we run our businesses.”
“This is an effort to dictate and control the lawful conduct of adults,” said Bruce Bereano, a tobacco industry lobbyist. “It’s clearly an effort by what I call the health police to proselytize and dictate what other people can and can’t do,” he said.
Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich is unlikely to support the bill, and favors market forces to resolve the issue, his press office said.
“We are up against a lot of force,” said Ruben. “We’re just going to keep on going ’til we get it through.”