Monday, April 7, 2003 | 9:12 a.m.
CARSON CITY -- Although the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected a proposal to allow local governments to impose stricter regulations on smoking, the issue is not dead.
Helen Foley, lobbyist for the Clark County Health District, and other advocates of smoking regulation, are holding out hope for a bill that is alive in the Assembly. It would permit local governments to tighten smoking restrictions.
On Friday, the Senate Judiciary Committee eliminated that authority from Senate Bill 50.
Foley said the Senate action "doesn't reflect the will of the public." Voters in Clark and Washoe counties approved an advisory question in the last election supporting more authority for counties and cities to protect people from secondhand smoke.
Voters also approved an advisory question that secondhand smoke should be completely prohibited by state law in places such as schools, grocery stores, restaurants and government buildings.
The version of SB50 approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee would permit a school district to place additional regulations on smoking, marketing and promoting tobacco products on school grounds.
Foley applauded the committee's decision to allow stiffer rules on school grounds, but she added the "bill does not go far enough" in giving local governments more authority.
The portion of the bill deleted by the committee would have allowed the Clark County Health District to ban smoking in many public buildings or in any area within 20 feet of a door of a public building. It would also have allowed the Health District to prohibit smoking in video arcades, grocery and convenience stores and all areas of restaurants except for bar areas where minors are not allowed.
All aspects of the original bill had been supported by such groups as the Nevada Medical Association, the Nevada Tobacco Prevention Coalition, the Clark and Washoe Health Districts and the American Lung Association.
But the Nevada Hotel Association, convenience stores and retail establishments opposed the local governmental entities portion of the bill. They said they don't want smoking restrictions to reduce the number of customers that frequent their establishments.
Sen. Mark Amodei, R-Carson City, the committee chairman, said local health districts should leave the regulating of smoking in businesses to the state. He said the state has been gradually ratcheting up smoking restrictions.
Nevada law prohibits smoking in such places as public elevators, public buildings, public waiting rooms of medical facilities, child-care facilities and school buses. The person in charge of public buildings may designate a room where smoking would be allowed.
A restaurant with a capacity of more than 50 customers must maintain smoking and non-smoking areas, but they do not have to be walled off or have separate ventilation. That has prompted advocates of smoking regulation to run television ads that say restaurant patrons have two seating choices: smoking or secondhand smoking.
Smoking is allowed in casinos, which have the option of designating certain areas as off-limits to tobacco.
Nevada adopted a law in 1993 that prohibits placing cigarette vending machines in public elevators, public waiting rooms of medical facilities, stores that sell food, child-care facilities and businesses.
The 1995 Legislature enacted a law requiring the attorney general to inspect and enforce compliance with the laws on the sale of cigarettes to minors, and a 2001 law prohibits the sale of tobacco products to minors through the Internet. Two years ago the Legislature also tightened the law to stop sale of contraband cigarettes.
Amodei noted that SB50, as approved by the committee, still calls for an earlier deadline for big grocery stores to enclose their smoking areas.
Smoking is permitted in grocery stores that are larger than 10,000 square feet if there is a segregated area that contains adequate ventilation.
At present these supermarkets have to have the walled-off areas for smoking by January 2010. SB50 would change the deadline to January 2007.
SB50 now heads for a vote in the Senate.
Another bill that would allow local governments to impose stricter smoking standards is in the Assembly.
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