Progress on smoking bans

Washington Post: Feb. 23, 2006, was a bad day for lungs in the Washington region. The Maryland and Virginia legislatures voted down proposed bans on smoking in restaurants and bars, sentencing employees to another year of unhealthful working conditions. But March 26, 2007, looked a lot better. On Monday, proposals to ban smoking in bars and restaurants in both states gained critical momentum. Maryland looks set to put a ban in place soon, and a fight over a similar proposal in Virginia is brewing. In the coming weeks, both states should fix the mistake they made last year.
The more encouraging story is in Maryland, where the Senate joined the House of Delegates in passing a bill banning smoking in bars and restaurants. Some details have yet to be resolved. Most notable is that the House version would let the state grant waivers to establishments hit overly hard by the ban, while the Senate wants to give that authority to counties. To establish a common standard, it is probably better to give state public health officials authority over the waivers -- which should be granted only in extreme cases, anyway. Either way, individual counties should have the option to ban all exceptions. However this question is resolved, the legislation is basically sound and worthy of Gov. Martin O'Malley's signature.
Fighting big tobacco
In Virginia, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine on Monday amended an unacceptably weak bill forged in the House of Delegates, which would have required only that establishments permitting smoking post a notice indicating that smoking was allowed. Mr. Kaine rewrote the bill to ban smoking in Virginia's restaurants. That change also applies to the state's bars, because in Virginia there is no legal distinction between bars and restaurants. Give the governor credit; it's not easy to fight Big Tobacco in Virginia, though the industry isn't as influential in Richmond as it once was. Some delegates are promising to fight Mr. Kaine's initiative when they reconvene in April; they shouldn't.
Smoking bans have proved successful in a range of jurisdictions around and outside the country, making hospitality employees markedly healthier, restaurants more pleasant and nightlife livelier.