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Friday, December 11, 2009
Michigan Legislature Passes Ban On Smoke In Most Workplaces
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| LANSING - Michiganders no longer will confront cigarette smoke in restaurants and bars starting in May after the Legislature's passage Thursday of legislation making it illegal to smoke in most workplaces.
Passage of the bill was a bitter defeat for the Michigan Restaurant Association, which had successfully fought the concept for years, contending restaurant owners had property rights to determine whether to allow the use of a legal product on their premises. They also argued that the market was naturally adjusting to increasing customer demand for smoke-free restaurants and labeled government intervention as unnecessary.
"If it's a health issue, why isn't the health of all employees or all hospitality patrons of importance?" said Andy Deloney, vice president of public affairs for the Michigan Restaurant Association, pointing to the casino exemption. "That's never been answered for us."
Deloney said almost 6,000 of the state's restaurants and bars already are smoke-free, up from just 2,200 a decade ago. Had the government stayed out of the issue, that number would have climbed steadily, he said.
Questions already are pouring in from restaurant owners about implementation of the bill, Deloney said.
After more than a decade of trying to get the legislation passed, supporters scored the critical victory they needed when the Senate backed off its past insistence on a ban in all workplaces and agreed to exempt the three Detroit casino gaming floors from the ban, an exception that the House had insisted upon.
Once the Senate rejected an amendment for a total ban, it passed HB 4377 on a 24-13 vote as nine Republicans joined 15 Democrats to pass the bill. Passage in the House followed about 100 minutes later on a 75-30 vote, sending the legislation to Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who has said she will sign it, making Michigan the 38th state with a workplace smoking ban.
Jubilant applause greeted votes in both chambers.
"Smokers have rights, but their rights end when they go up the nose of a nonsmoker," said Sen. Raymond Basham (D-Taylor), the lead advocate for the legislation going back to his first term in the House in 1997-98.
Advocates, who for years were shut down in the Legislature, mounted a relentless campaign and prevailed.
"Legislators have given Michigan workers the greatest gift of all - the ability to breathe smoke-free air in the workplace," said Susan Schechter, director of advocacy at the American Lung Association of Michigan and spokesperson for the Campaign for Smokefree Air.
As the Senate prepared to open debate on the bill, there was a fairly strong sense that a smoking ban would pass. What was unclear was the form - a complete ban or one that exempted the Detroit casino gaming floors, specialty tobacco shops and cigar bars like the House passed earlier this year.
But when Sen. Roger Kahn (R-Saginaw Township) proposed changing the bill to a near-total ban with exemptions only for workplaces in people's private residences and motor vehicles, it failed on a 16-20 vote. Once that happened, final passage of the bill with the exemptions was all but assured.
The Senate did make some notable changes to the legislation. Restaurant owners would not be required to notify law enforcement if they saw anyone smoking. However, a customer or restaurant owner could call law enforcement if they wanted to do so.
The Senate bill also created exemptions to allow smoking in home offices and in workplaces within motor vehicles, the latter created for truckers. Smokers who violate the law would face a $100 civil fine for the first offense and $500 for subsequent offenses.
But, just as the House bill required, restaurants would have to post no smoking signs and remove all ashtrays. Amendments on the Senate floor to exempt the state's horse racetracks, bingos and so-called millionaire parties - Vegas nights with imitation money - were rejected on voice votes.
Sen. Ron Jelinek (R-Three Oaks), who as first reported by Gongwer News Service last week, played a key role in reviving the issue by agreeing to take the lead for majority Republicans in the Senate, urged lawmakers to support the deal with the handful of exemptions.
"We live in a world of compromise," he said on the Senate floor. "We have such a compromise today. To pass a full ban is a guarantee of failure in the House because we've already done that and they've already demonstrated that they are not interested in a full ban."
Jelinek told reporters after the vote he decided to get involved because he felt some embarrassment that the issue died in 2008 after the House and Senate could not agree on whether to ban smoking in all workplaces or give casinos an exemption.
"It was time," he said.
Approval came despite the opposition of Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop (R-Rochester) and a 12-9 majority of the Republican caucus. But Bishop agreed to allow a vote.
"I have to ask an obvious line of questions: When will it stop?" he said. "How much control will you want? And when will people have to stop thinking for themselves entirely?"
Said Lance Binoniemi, executive director of the Michigan Licensed Beverage Association: "It's a sad day in Michigan when our state leads the country in unemployment, but our elected leaders pass smoking ban legislation that will undoubtedly cost thousands of jobs across the state."
Sen. Mike Nofs (R-Battle Creek) said he set aside his personal opposition to the bill and voted for it because he heard continuously during his recently concluded special election race from voters who wanted the ban on smoking in restaurants and bars.
"I had to make a tough decision. I personally don't like to outlaw or ban smoking," he said. "But the one thing I did realize in talking to the people who sent me up here over the last eight or nine months is the fact that I'm a representative of them."
Saying that sometimes compromises are needed (a reference to the casino exemption), Granholm said she would sign the bill.
"It's a terrific gift to Michigan," she said.
Staff members unofficially refer to the measure as the Paul Reinhart bill, in honor of the top Community Health official who died last month of lung cancer though he did not smoke. Granholm blamed his death on second-hand smoke.
And she said people she knew, especially parents of college age children, would complain that with so many other states barring smoking in public places, Michigan did not seem to have entered the 21st Century. When their kids returned from campus, if they had been out at a bar, it was almost as if they had to strip off in the garage to get rid of the smell of smoke, Granholm said.
Once the bill returned to the House, the chamber briefly flirted with an amendment, which would have sent the bill back to the Senate, but Democrats procedurally gaveled off a GOP amendment exempting a Traverse City event from the ban.
"Lots of good things come from compromises," and the partial smoking ban is one of those, said Rep. Dick Ball (R-Laingsburg).
Rep. Lee Gonzales (D-Flint), sponsor of HB 4377, said, "nothing good comes easy," but on Thursday smoke-free advocates could celebrate.
"We have heard the message. We have heard the thoughts of the people of Michigan," Rep. Joan Bauer (D-Lansing).
The bill still had detractors in the chamber, including Rep. Rick Jones (R-Grand Ledge), who said he couldn't support a bill that exempts casino floors from the smoking ban and doesn't give the same courtesy to private clubs. He said it was "highly un-American" to tell veterans what legal activity they can do in their private club.
ROLL CALL VOTES: Here is how the House and Senate voted on HB 4377, the workplace smoking ban:
SENATE DEMOCRATS VOTING YES: Anderson, Basham, Brater, Cherry, Clark-Coleman, Clarke, Gleason, Hunter, Jacobs, Olshove, Prusi, Scott, Switalski, Thomas, Whitmer.
SENATE DEMOCRAT VOTING NO: Barcia.
SENATE REPUBLICANS VOTING YES: Birkholz, Cassis, George, Jelinek, Kahn, McManus, Nofs, Pappageorge, Patterson.
SENATE REPUBLICANS VOTING NO: Allen, Bishop, Brown, Cropsey, Garcia, Gilbert, Jansen, Kuipers, Richardville, Sanborn, Stamas, Van Woerkom.
SENATE REPUBLICAN ABSENT: Hardiman.
HOUSE DEMOCRATS VOTING YES : Angerer, Barnett, Bauer, Bledsoe, L. Brown, T. Brown, Byrnes, Byrum, Constan, Corriveau, Coulouris, Dean, Dillon, Donigan, Durhal, Ebli, Geiss, Gonzales, Gregory, Griffin, Haase, Hammel, Jackson, Johnson, Robert Jones, Kandrevas, Kennedy, LeBlanc, Leland, Lemmons, Lindberg, Lipton, Liss, McDowell, Meadows, Melton, Miller, Nathan, Nerat, Polidori, Roberts, Scripps, Segal, Sheltrown, Slavens, Slezak, Smith, Spade, Stanley, Switalski, Tlaib, Valentine, Warren, Womack and Young.
HOUSE DEMOCRATS VOTING NO: Espinoza, Haugh, Lahti, Mayes, Neumann, R. Schmidt and B. Scott.
HOUSE REPUBLICANS VOTING YES: Ball, Calley, Crawford, DeShazor, Green, Haines, Hansen, Knollenberg, Kowall, Lori, Marleau, Meltzer, Moss, Opsommer, Proos, Rocca, Schuitmaker, P. Scott, Tyler and Walsh.
HOUSE REPUBLICANS VOTING NO: Agema, Amash, Bolger, Booher, Caul, Daley, Denby, Elsenheimer, Genetski, Haveman, Hildenbrand, Horn, Rick Jones, Kurtz, Lund, McMillin, Meekhof, Moore, Pavlov, Pearce, Rogers, W. Schmidt and Stamas.
HOUSE MEMBERS NOT VOTING: Clemente, Cushingberry and Huckleberry.
HOUSE MEMBERS ABSENT: Bennett and Simpson.
This story was provided by Gongwer News Service. To subscribe, click on Gongwer.Com
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Author: Staff Writer
Source:
Gongwer News Service
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