Amendments Threaten Anti-Smoking Measure : Legislature: Assemblyman Friedman says he will drop his bill unless Senate committee changes that reduce its scope are removed.

Portending a major legislative victory for the tobacco industry, the author of potentially landmark anti-smoking legislation said Wednesday that he will drop his bill to ban smoking in almost all indoor workplaces unless he can remove controversial amendments added by a Senate committee.

In a Tuesday night session heavily attended by tobacco lobbyists, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the bill by Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Brentwood), but inserted an amendment prohibiting cities from adopting stricter anti-smoking ordinances. A second amendment could permit smoking in up to 25% of the space in restaurants.

“I will not pursue the bill with these amendments,” Friedman said. “They are hostile, they are anti-worker, they are anti-business, and they serve the interests of the tobacco industry.”

Led by Sens. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) and Charles Calderon (D-Whittier), the committee imposed the amendments over the objections of Friedman and business and health groups that had supported the smoking ban.

“This bill has just been raped,” said Tony Najera, lobbyist for the American Lung Assn. Unless the amendments are removed, Najera said, “we will do everything possible to make sure it is killed.”

The tobacco industry, long a rich source of campaign funds, began losing ground in Sacramento last year when Friedman’s bill gained surprising support. Los Angeles, San Francisco and scores of smaller cities imposed tough smoking restrictions. And state health officials issued a report showing that the percentage of adults who smoke has declined to 19.1% from almost 30% in 1988.

Now, the tobacco industry is battling back with renewed fury.

Philip Morris U.S.A., the nation’s largest tobacco company, is paying the costs of gathering 600,000 voter signatures to place an initiative on the November ballot in California that would erase local anti-tobacco ordinances and impose a statewide standard allowing smoking in ventilated areas of workplaces, including restaurants.

Philip Morris and others have filed a lawsuit challenging a local ordinance restricting smoking in restaurants and other indoor workplaces in San Francisco. A victory in the suit could threaten other local smoking bans.

Heightening the tensions, the anti-smoking group, Americans for Nonsmokers Rights, resorted to the courts Wednesday, charging in a lawsuit that Gov. Pete Wilson and the Legislature refuse to fully implement 1988’s Proposition 99, which added a 25-cent cigarette tax to fund anti-smoking campaigns.

In the Legislature, Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara) is pushing a bill to eliminate state income tax deductions for lobbying and promotions by the tobacco industry, while Assemblyman Stan Statham (R-Oak Run) is pushing a 2-cents-a-pack tax to fund research on prostate cancer.

But none of the bills introduced in recent years have had the sweep of Friedman’s bill. It began last year as a flat-out ban on smoking in all indoor workplaces. To win endorsements and gather votes of skeptical legislators, Friedman amended it to allow smoking, with restrictions, in card clubs, bars, hotel rooms and a few other places.

Still, as it entered the Senate Judiciary Committee, the bill would have created perhaps the toughest state anti-smoking law in the country.

Throughout the process, Friedman managed to keep intact a provision allowing local governments to impose stricter smoking bans. But that unraveled when Calderon won committee support for his amendment prohibiting cities from imposing stricter anti-smoking ordinances.

A statewide standard that would abolish stiff local ordinances is one of the tobacco industry’s key goals in California.

Meanwhile, Torres, a candidate for state insurance commissioner, engineered passage of an amendment that could allow smoking in restaurants. He insisted that he was supporting anti-tobacco efforts.

“Don’t put me with the tobacco industry,” Torres told Friedman during one of their heated exchanges. “Don’t you dare do that.”

Torres’ amendment would require Cal/OSHA, the state job safety agency, to develop standards allowing smoking in up to 25% of the space in restaurants. If no standards could be developed, he said, smoking would be banned in restaurants.