Pa. Senate OKs smoking ban

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The state Senate has broken a yearlong stalemate on a statewide smoking ban, approving a compromise bill Tuesday that would make Pennsylvania the 33rd state to outlaw smoking in many workplaces and public spaces.

The Senate voted 41-9, sending the bill to Gov. Ed Rendell to be signed into law in what supporters hailed as a step forward for public health and protecting people from the dangers of second-hand smoke.

“The substance that we’re dealing with is dangerous to anyone who is exposed to it, even for a short period of time,” said Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, the Montgomery County Republican who has tried for more than a decade to persuade Senate colleagues to approve such legislation.

Rendell, who has advocated a smoking ban as a way to reduce health-care costs, has said he plans to sign the bill.

It would take effect 90 days after being signed into law, banning cigarette, cigar and pipe smoking in restaurants, office buildings, schools, sports arenas, theaters and bus and train stations.

By no means will Pennsylvania’s law be the nation’s toughest: A dozen exemptions will ensure that smoking can continue at numerous bars and taverns, portions of casino floors, private clubs and elsewhere. In fact, Philadelphia’s year-and-a-half-old ban goes further in some places, banning smoking in the two casinos that are planned on its waterfront.

The exemptions prompted the American Lung Association to withhold its endorsement, while some other public health advocates grudgingly accepted the bill. Greenleaf and others who had pressed for the strongest possible bill also promised to return to it in the near future to strengthen it.

“We will live to fight another day,” said Sen. Jay Costa, D-Allegheny.

Deep divisions between the House and Senate delayed the bill, and demanded a year to resolve disagreements over the extent to which smoking would still be allowed in certain establishments and which local governments could enforce tougher local bans.

The compromise bill was fashioned by a joint House-Senate conference committee, which approved it last week, 5-1, before the House approved it, 163-38.