Tennessee law keeps towns, counties from enacting smoking bans
By Emily Berry, Staff Writer
The Chattanooga Times Free Press

Chattanooga , TN - Despite requests from dozens of local governments and support from legislators citing a health risk from secondhand smoke, Tennessee law prohibits cities and counties from passing their own public smoking bans.

The 11-year-old law has been challenged by bills in the past few legislative sessions, but so far the issue never has been brought to a vote.

"It is very difficult to do anything (in the Legislature) that impacts tobacco," Rep. Paul Stanley, R-Memphis, said. "I think it's to protect tobacco. I think the reason is that if the local communities can make that decision ... some will ban tobacco."

Agriculture Committee member Rep. Chris Clem, R-Lookout Mountain, said there is no "tobacco conspiracy" and that bills giving local control over public smoking rules fail because committee members oppose limiting individual rights.

"It's really more of a freedom issue than it is a public health issue for me," Rep. Clem said.

Rep. Stanley said he plans to introduce a bill again next year that would give local governments the power to pass their own smoking regulations.

Rep. Jack Sharp, R-East Ridge, a member of the Agriculture Committee, said he doesn't expect Rep. Stanley's bill or any like it to make it past the committee stage, at least not with his support.

"We've taken our people who have the cigarette habit and definitely turned them into second-class citizens," he said. "I don't like that aspect of the deal at all."

SEEKING CONTROL

Anne Tegen, program director for Berkeley, Calif.-based Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, said that, according to American Cancer Society data, 31 cities and counties in Tennessee -- including Hamilton County and the city of Cleveland -- have passed resolutions asking the Legislature to allow them to make their own public smoking rules.

Cleveland City Council member Bambi Hines, who is a nurse and dental hygienist, said she hopes that if local governments take control of smoking rules, Cleveland officials could establish taxes and other policies to keep young people from smoking.

"I felt like it would give the community authority to control tobacco policies, and by doing that we could enforce it as far as taxing it," she said. "Personally, I would not be against having it banned completely in public."

Public smoking bans worry Patrick Hook. The 29-year-old restaurant worker from Chattanooga began smoking at age 12 and now smokes two packs a day. He said he feels as if his right to enjoy a legal product by his own choice is under attack.

Mr. Hook said laws recently enacted in Georgia and Florida banning smoking in most public places make him feel sure a ban on public smoking will come to at least some parts of Tennessee .

"I think ultimately they are not really concerned with individual rights," he said.

Hamilton County Commissioner Charlotte Vandergriff said she supported the county's resolution last year, and she believes local governments eventually will win back control of smoking rules.

"I just think it's going to take some local areas and some states longer than it does others," she said.

Chattanooga 's City Council hasn't looked at the issue recently, though the city's public buildings are nonsmoking, City Councilman Jack Benson said.

HEALTH CONCERNS

Cynthia Hallett, executive director of Americans for Nonsmokers Rights, said representatives of local governments around the state and country who want control back are speaking up in part because of new scientific data about secondhand smoke.

"This is a health issue and government, whether state or local, has always regulated health issues in restaurants and in other venues," she said.

The American Cancer Society estimates that between 30,000 and 40,000 nonsmokers die each year from heart disease attributable to secondhand smoke.

Douglas Benton has mounted a statewide campaign to end smoking in Tennessee restaurants. The Knoxville native lived in California for 20 years before returning home three years ago with his family. He said his return was soured by routinely having to deal with smoky restaurants where his wife sometimes had to use her inhaler to get through a meal.

Mr. Benton said he knows his activism can have only so much impact until the state changes its rule.

"There's not much the county can do," he said.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. spokesman David Howard said he didn't know of any specific efforts by the company to keep the state in control of smoking rules.

"In terms of smoking bans themselves, whether (passed by) state government or local governments, our feeling is let the business owners decide," he said.

E-mail Emily Berry at eberry@timesfreepress.com

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