The Right Bill to Ban Smoking

This year the Legislature is again considering a bill that would ban smoking in all enclosed places of employment throughout the state. AB 13 is concise, well-drafted legislation. And as the percentage of Californians who smoke continues to shrink--and evidence about the risks of smoking, even for nonsmokers, continues to mount--the bill is long overdue.

This year, AB 13, introduced by Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Brentwood), stands a good chance of passage. It has already cleared the Assembly Labor Committee and is now before the Ways and Means Committee.

So it should be no surprise that those opposed to a tough statewide ban have quicklydrafted a countermeasure. AB 996, sponsored by Assemblyman Curtis R. Tucker Jr. (D-Inglewood), could get its first hearing this week in the Assembly Governmental Organization Committee. The Assembly should not waste its time on this patchwork of tepid provisions.

That the tobacco industry may apparently be more comfortable with AB 996 than AB 13 should alone make Californians uneasy. But worse still, the bill’s provisions are needlessly complex and burdensome to businesses without advancing protections for nonsmokers. Current state law permits any employer to ban smoking in the workplace but requires none to do so. Tucker’s bill doesn’t change that but specifies a statewide minimum percentage of nonsmoking restaurant seats, airport terminal space and hotel rooms. While the bill wisely restricts the sale of cigarettes through vending machines, it unreasonably requires merchants to retain copies of statements signed by each employee verifying that he or she understand state law prohibiting the sale of cigarettes to minors.

Friedman’s comprehensive workplace ban is the far better approach. It has the support of an unprecedented coalition, including the Calfornia Restaurant Assn. and the California Medical Assn. A workplace smoking ban does not aim at punishing the 20% of Californians who smoke--they can still smoke out of the workplace--but at protecting those 80% who don’t from having their health impaired. There is simply no defensible reason for legislators to reject the workplace smoke ban. And a weak substitute--AB 996--won’t do the job.