Assembly OKs Tough Anti-Smoking Bill It Rejected Earlier : Legislature: Vote sets up compromise or showdown in Senate with rival measure that contains many exemptions. Some lawmakers voted for both.

The legislative tobacco war flared anew Monday, as the Assembly approved a tough anti-smoking bill that would ban smoking in all indoor workplaces, setting up a showdown or compromise in the Senate between powerful lobbying forces.

“Talk about a bill rising from the ashes,” said Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Brentwood) who authored the measure to ban smoking in virtually every building outside the home, including bars, factories and pool halls.

Friedman’s bill had stalled seven votes short of a majority last Tuesday, while a bill backed by the tobacco industry and carried by Assemblyman Curtis Tucker Jr. (D-Inglewood) cleared the Assembly on Thursday. Tucker’s bill would restrict indoor smoking while providing many exemptions and prohibiting local governments from adopting new stricter regulations.

On its face, the vote taken Monday afternoon with little debate appeared to conflict with approval of the Tucker bill last week. The action ensures that the battle over smoking will continue in the Senate.

Friedman’s bill faces an uphill fight in the Senate Governmental Organization Committee. Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) gave Tucker’s measure at least a chance of passage.

Friedman’s bill won a surprising 47 votes on Monday while 24 members opposed the legislation. At least 18 lawmakers who had voted for Tucker’s measure joined in also casting votes for Friedman’s bill.

“I sure hope the tobacco industry is listening today,” said Tony Najera of the American Lung Assn. “Today’s vote (shows) how strongly Californians support a healthy workplace. We’re damned proud of it.”

Friedman spent the past week contacting individual lawmakers. At the same time, large numbers of anti-smoking advocates, ranging from restaurant owners and doctors to local officials and nonsmokers, called and wrote lawmakers urging that they throw their support behind the bill.

Several lawmakers said that if both bills clear Senate committees, they expect them to end up in a joint Assembly-Senate conference committee where they would be amended.

“People think one bill went too far and one didn’t go far enough,” said Assemblyman John Burton (D-San Francisco), one of the supporters of Friedman’s bill.

Lawmakers who voted for both measures said they hope for a compromise. “I wasn’t happy with either bill, really,” said Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress). “Hopefully, they can come up with some better compromise over in the Senate.”

Friedman, a nonsmoker and one of the few lawmakers who does not accept tobacco industry campaign donations, has agreed to amend his bill to allow smoking in hotel rooms and portions of lobbies. But he has insisted that he would not water down the bill to please tobacco interests.

“It’s the biggest victory ever against the tobacco industry,” Friedman said of the bill’s passage from the Assembly, an institution that long has been known for killing anti-tobacco legislation and where the tobacco industry spends heavily on campaign donations and lobbying.

Only last year, a similar bill died in the Labor Committee, which Friedman chairs, with only four votes. But this year, Friedman and anti-smoking forces set out again, and have been relying on a new study by the Environmental Protection Agency declaring second-hand smoke to be a major cause of cancer and other ailments in nonsmokers.

Both the Friedman and Tucker bills would preempt local government from imposing new anti-smoking ordinances. But while Friedman’s bill seeks a broad ban on smoking, Tucker’s measure has many exemptions.

Tucker’s bill would allow smoking in factories, warehouses, bars, small restaurants and small businesses, and would prohibit workers from filing workers’ compensation claims against their employers over smoke-related illnesses.