A win for clean air

Tuesday, May 19, 2009 | 2:05 a.m.

It was a welcome moment last week when Assembly Judiciary Committee Chairman Bernie Anderson asked if any member wanted to vote on Senate Bill 372 and the response was silence.

Because Friday was the final day for committees to process bills, the silence rendered SB372 all but dead.

The bill would have altered the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act, which voters approved in 2006. The act prohibits smoking in almost all indoor places of employment in Nevada, a notable exception being the gaming areas of casinos.

Another exception is taverns, but only those that do not serve food. It was tavern owners who were pushing SB372. The bill would have amended the act to allow food service and smoking in taverns. Additionally, the bill would have allowed businesses to permit smoking in separately ventilated rooms, and would have transferred enforcement of the act from local health officials to state health officials.

Had those changes gone through, the public would have once again been inundated with dangerous secondhand smoke, as separately ventilated rooms are no guarantee against smoke permeating buildings, and state agencies are not staffed well enough to enforce the act.

Anderson said there was “no appetite” for the bill among the committee members. Nevadans should be grateful, as secondhand smoke has been identified by the Environmental Protection Agency as a cause of cancer. It can also lead to other health problems, asthma and heart disease among them.

Additionally, recent reports show that tobacco use is even more dangerous than previously believed. Examples include a study published by University of Toronto researchers listing evidence that girls and young women who smoke face increased risks of breast cancer, and a University of California, San Diego, researcher linking filtered, lower-tar cigarettes with an increasingly common form of cancer found in small air sacs deep in the lungs.

Although SB372 has died in the Assembly committee, we hope no one tries to resurrect it in the harried final days of the Legislature. That should not happen.