Panel OKs Statewide Indoor Smoking Ban : Legislature: Senate Health Committee clears the measure after concessions, including an exemption for bars. An opposing bill that would repeal local ordinances is withdrawn by its sponsor.

A Senate committee approved a statewide indoor smoking ban Wednesday after the bill’s author agreed to allow smoking in bars, while competing legislation to gut local anti-smoking ordinances stalled.

Although Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Brentwood) softened his stance to permit smoking in bars, his bill to ban smoking in indoor workplaces continues to meet stiff opposition from tobacco industry and hotel lobbyists, tavern owners and even some senators who voted for it.

Senators said the dueling bill authored by Assemblyman Curtis Tucker Jr. (D-Inglewood), which is backed by the tobacco industry and which seeks to repeal local anti-smoking measures, is far from dead, and it likely will be put to a vote in August after the Legislature’s summer recess.

“I don’t like either bill,” said state Sen. Wadie P. Deddeh (D-Bonita).

In an example of the strange politics that have accompanied the hard-fought legislative smoking wars this session, Deddeh cast a deciding vote on the Senate Health Committee for the Friedman bill but said he might end up working to kill it on the Senate floor.

Deddeh also raised the possibility that the Legislature would pass both bills, leaving it to Gov. Pete Wilson to decide whether to sign them into law.

“You’ll fight it out on the governor’s desk,” Deddeh told Friedman and Tucker.

Friedman set out to impose a flat-out prohibition on smoking in all indoor workplaces. But his bill was criticized as being too restrictive, and he agreed to amend it to get the needed votes on the 11-member Health Committee. The bill passed by a 7-1 vote, with three senators abstaining.

In addition to allowing smoking in bars, Friedman agreed to let smokers light up in card rooms, bingo halls, city-owned convention centers, hotel rooms, specified parts of hotel lobbies and some hotel bars.

Additionally, Friedman agreed to allow smoking in large warehouses that employ 20 or fewer people. Even with the amendments, he said, the bill is “reasonable but still strong, and will still protect California businesses and workers.”

Friedman’s bill must now clear two more Senate committees, and then faces votes on the Senate floor and in the Assembly before making it to Wilson. He said he anticipates that there will be efforts to exempt more establishments from the smoking ban.

Tucker opted to avoid having his bill put to a vote in the Health Committee Wednesday, concluding that he lacked a majority. He retreated to work on amendments in the hope of lining up the needed votes when the Legislature returns in August.

As it is now written, Tucker’s bill would overturn Los Angeles’ newly passed smoking ban and other local smoking ordinances that were not in effect prior to April 1.

Friedman’s bill would allow local governments to impose ordinances tougher than his statewide standard. But despite its amendments, Friedman’s bill remains stricter than most of the 270 local ordinances now in effect.

The battle over cigarette smoking broke out in Sacramento this year after the Environmental Protection Agency issued a report declaring that secondhand smoke causes thousands of deaths annually among nonsmokers.

Tucker said his bill would “dramatically reduce the incidence of exposure to secondhand smoke.” Although his bill imposes some restrictions on smoking, it generally allows business owners to decide whether to allow smoking in their establishments.

As the Senate Health Committee fought over the smoking ban, a bill by Assemblywoman Barbara Friedman (D-North Hollywood) to add a two-cent per pack tax on cigarettes for breast cancer research and diagnosis cleared the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee on a 5-1 vote. In that same committee, state Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles) failed Wednesday to win support for a 27-cent per pack sin tax on cigarettes.