Bar Smoking Ban Gets Wide Backing

Californians strongly support the state’s six-month-old ban on smoking in bars, even as some lawmakers and pro-smoking groups look for ways to undermine the law, a Los Angeles Times Poll found.

In a poll of 1,514 adults in California last week, 50% said they strongly favor the bar smoking ban, and an additional 10% somewhat approve of it, compared to 26% who strongly disapprove of it and 9% who somewhat oppose it.

Support for the measure, the nation’s first statewide law prohibiting smoking in bars, crossed party lines, gender, income levels and age.

“This is not a divisive issue,” Times Poll Director Susan Pinkus said, noting that almost twice as many people strongly support the bar smoking ban than strongly oppose it. “Most people are in agreement. Even 25% of smokers approve of the ban.”

The only group that opposes the prohibition is smokers, with 61% saying they strongly disapprove of it and 11% saying they somewhat disapprove of it. However, only 20% of the people responding to the poll said they are smokers.

The ban was embraced by 65% of Democratic voters, 57% of Republican voters and 59% of independents. The ban is supported by 64% of women. Men also support it, though somewhat less strongly at 56% to 39%.

Although the issue of smoking in bars is not as gut-wrenching as gun control or abortion, Californians’ support for the new anti-smoking law is similar. Recent Times polls show that 70% of the voters want stronger bans on assault weapons and 59% favor abortion rights, according to an October 1997 Times poll.

The poll comes as the state Department of Health Services airs ads on television and radio urging support of the bar smoking ban. Those ads cast the law as one designed to protect workers from the ill effects of secondhand smoke.

Gov. Pete Wilson signed the landmark ban on smoking in enclosed workplaces in 1994. The law, written by then-Assemblyman Terry Friedman of Los Angeles, was extended to bars starting Jan. 1.

Of the major candidates for governor, only Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, the likely Republican nominee, has expressed reservations about the ban. Lungren has said that there should be accommodations for smokers who want to light up in bars, and that he would sign a bill “that would allow some flexibility so you could have smoking in bars.”

On this issue, Lungren appears to be going against the wishes of a majority of his supporters. The ban is supported by a 53%-42% margin among the registered voters polled who plan to vote for Lungren.

The poll found stronger support among people planning to vote for the Democratic candidates for governor in next Tuesday’s primary, with 63% of registered voters planning to vote for Lt. Gov. Gray Davis and former Northwest Airlines Chairman Al Checchi saying they support the ban, and 71% of the voters backing Harman favoring the ban.

Checchi, Davis and Harman said Tuesday that they would uphold the ban if elected governor.

The Times Poll findings are consistent with surveys taken by anti-smoking groups that also found strong support for the measure.

“I would think any legislator [who hopes to roll back the ban] would be dissuaded from doing so based on those numbers,” said Paul Knepprath, a lobbyist for the American Lung Assn. of California.

At least two bills to weaken or repeal the ban have stalled in the Legislature this year. Assemblyman Brett Granlund (R-Yucaipa), who wrote one of those bills, said that although his bill lacks the votes to win passage, there may be a push later in the session to create a new license category for some bars that would permit them to allow smoking.

“One thing I’ve learned is nothing is dead,” Granlund said Tuesday. “Everything rises from the ashes, or the ashtray.”

With help from such groups as the National Smokers’ Alliance, a tobacco industry-funded group based in Virginia that opposes the ban, some bar owners continue to protest the ban, telling lawmakers it is damaging their business.

Gary Auxier of the National Smokers’ Alliance dismissed the poll results, saying: “That’s just a popularity contest.”

“It’s more complicated than a single question,” Auxier said. “It’s an economic issue. It’s a fairness issue. We think it’s a choice issue.”

The poll was conducted May 16 to 20. The margin of sampling of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.