State's smoking bills face hurdles

Anti-tobacco measures still have a chance, supporters insist

By TOM HUMPHREY, KnoxNews.com
May 16, 2007

NASHVILLE - A legislative push for broad new statewide restrictions on smoking suffered an apparent setback in a hostile Senate committee Tuesday, though supporters insisted that the effort still has a chance.

The Senate Commerce Committee first spurned a bill by Sen. Bill Ketron, R-Murfreesboro, that would have forced Tennessee's restaurants to either ban smoking or allow entry only to customers 21 or older.

Only two members on the panel backed the Ketron bill, SB915, while one voted no and six abstained.

The committee then turned to a bill by Sen. Jim Tracy, R-Shelbyville, that imposed a general ban on workplace smoking while including several exceptions, including businesses with three or fewer employees, businesses that sell tobacco products, and restaurants and bars that limit admission to those older than 21. Violators would face a $50 fine.

Tracy described his bill, SB1325, as a "sensible compromise." But the committee voted to rewrite it on a motion by Sen. Paul Stanley, R-Germantown. The revised version would impose no restrictions at all on smoking in private businesses, but would forbid smoking in buildings owned or leased by city and county governments.

The Legislature last year passed a bill banning smoking in state-owned buildings. Critics said the bill, as amended, does nothing because most city and county governments already prohibit smoking inside buildings they own or lease.

"We're gutting the bill," said Sen. Tim Burchett, R-Knoxville, who supports smoking restrictions.

Burchett nonetheless joined five other senators in voting to approve the amended version and send the bill on to the Senate floor.

Tracy said afterward that he will try to have the committee amendment rejected on the floor, restoring the bill to its original status. Stanley said he, too, saw the amendment as a strategic move to get the bill out of a committee that was poised to kill it.

A third bill before the committee, sponsored by Sen. Roy Herron, D-Dresden, on behalf of Gov. Phil Bredesen's administration, would prohibit smoking in all workplaces statewide without exceptions.

Herron did not put the administration bill, SB2255, to a vote. Doing so, he said, would have assured its defeat. It is now scheduled for a vote next week, and Herron said things could change by then.

Stanley said the Bredesen bill is "too far-reaching" and cannot pass.

On the House side, all three smoking restriction bills remain stalled in the House Agriculture Committee.