Tobacco's last stand
Advocates of a state ban sense that its time is now
By Richard Locker

December 13, 2006

NASHVILLE -- Emboldened by this year's smoking ban in state buildings and a new surgeon general's report that secondhand smoke kills, Tennessee health groups will push harder in 2007 for a law to ban smoking in every building where people work.

That's all public and private workplaces other than residences -- including restaurants and bars, some of the smokiest public places left. Anti-smoking groups have targeted them with bills in the Tennessee legislature for the last three years, without success.

Restaurant and other business owners in Memphis and its suburbs differ on whether they will support a total smoking ban in the workplace. Some say they oppose it as government intrusion. Others say it would level the playing field for all businesses, putting none at a competitive disadvantage.

"I think it's very positive as long as there are no exceptions. Once the playing field is equal, everybody's treated the same," said restaurateur Thomas Boggs, owner of the seven Huey's and five other restaurants in Greater Memphis.

"If there's one exception, the Memphis Restaurant Association and the Tennessee Restaurant Association will fight it to the end," Boggs said. Ronnie Hart, president of the 2,500-member TRA agreed.

The Huey's in Collierville goes smoke-free Jan. 1. Rendezvous, the Downtown landmark, follows Jan. 11.

Twenty states have enacted strong smoke-free workplace laws, starting with California in 1994 through five states this year, according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation. Arkansas' ban on smoking in most workplaces went into effect July 21. Louisiana's is effective Jan. 1.

Other states, including Georgia and Missouri on Tennessee's border, have adopted weaker laws with more exemptions.

In Tennessee, a statewide coalition of public health groups is mobilizing a large grassroots and lobbying effort to persuade state lawmakers to adopt a comprehensive workplace smoking ban next year.

"We have a good bit of hope this year for several reasons," said Chastity Mitchell, lobbyist for Campaign for a Healthy and Responsible Tennessee (CHART), a coalition of more than 50 groups. They include the Tennessee Medical Association, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association and others.

Those reasons include:

A new scientific report issued by Surgeon General Richard Carmona concludes "there is no risk-free exposure" -- even briefly -- "to secondhand smoke." He said secondhand smoke causes "tens of thousands of heart disease deaths" of nonsmokers per year and 3,000 deaths of non-smokers to lung disease. Exposure also causes sudden infant death syndrome and respiratory problems in children, and "only smoke-free environments effectively protect non-smokers from secondhand smoke" indoors, the report concludes.

After years of failed efforts to curb smoking in Tennessee, the state legislature finally approved by a large margin a smoking ban in all state-owned and -operated buildings this year. Gov. Phil Bredesen and others said that breakthrough probably opened the gates to more anti-smoking legislation.

Public sentiment for it is growing. A new poll released Tuesday by the American Cancer Society shows that 65 percent of Tennesseans favor a state law that would make all workplaces, including restaurants and bars, smoke free.

Although Tennessee is the nation's third-largest tobacco producer, its cultivation and economic impact is in decline. Tennessee farmers grew tobacco on 23,000 acres in 2005, down from nearly 70,000 in 1982, according to Agriculture Department figures. The leaf produced $91 million in farm income last year, down from $262 million two decades earlier.

But a total ban on workplace smoking will face an uphill fight.

Despite the retirement of state Rep. Gene Davidson, whose district north of Nashville is home to many tobacco farmers, the House Agriculture Committee that he chaired is a killing field for anti-tobacco bills. A new chairman won't be named until the legislature convenes Jan. 9 but the committee remains dominated by farm and tobacco interests.

The Tennessee Farm Bureau Federation opposes most anti-smoking bills and remains politically muscular.

"Historically, our position has been that it's a property rights issue: If it is a private business, that the private business owner should make the decision about what the smoking policy in the building is," Farm Bureau lobbyist Rhedona Rose said.

At it has elsewhere, the tobacco industry is expected to push for smoking exemptions in the bill for places that require adult identification to enter, like nightclubs and some bars.

Memphis lawyer Richard Fields is joining the smoke-free effort on behalf of local nonprofit health groups and some influential Memphians that he declined to identify.

"I'm trying to help coordinate the effort. We have the surgeon general's report on second-hand smoke, which is pretty devastating. Plus many other states have passed it, including Arkansas. Gov. (Mike) Huckabee has done a good job on that," Fields said.

Germantown Mayor Sharon Goldsworthy and her city led efforts for the past three years to repeal a 1994 state law that blocked local governments from enacting their own smoking bans in restaurants and other non-governmental buildings. She said the city hasn't decided whether to pursue similar legislation in 2007 and hasn't been approached yet about the broader workplace initiative.

"Not knowing the details of it yet, it would appear that this has a proposed outcome that would cover what our narrower objective is. As you move about a community, there are not many places where you find many people smoking other than in restaurants and bars. I think people have gotten used to that. There seems to be increasingly widespread acceptance that public places should be smoke-free," she said.

The smoke-free workplace bill, which hasn't been filed yet, is based on model legislation drafted by the American Medical Association. "Organized medicine believes it is long overdue. The latest surgeon general's report provides even more justification," said Gary M. Zelizer of the TMA, representing Tennessee doctors.

"With smoke-free legislation passing in states like Georgia, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana and even townships in Kentucky and Virginia, Tennessee is about to be in the minority of Southeastern states that has yet to address the issue," he said.

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