Restaurant Related News

Though Smoking Bill Fails in Albany, Hopes for Ban Persist

By: Somini Sengupta
Source: The New York Times
Published: June 25, 2001

To entertain the notion that Senate Republicans in Albany would get behind a bill to ban smoking in all New York restaurants was considered sheer hubris, even a couple of years ago.

But this year, just such a measure raced through the Legislature's Republican-controlled upper house. For most of last week, Charles J. Fuschillo Jr., the Long Island Republican who sponsored the bill, waxed optimistic about its chances. Even the Senate leader, Joseph L. Bruno, offered hints of support early last week.

Then, as advocates for the ban and lobbyists for tobacco companies and restaurants vied for lawmakers' ears in the green-carpeted Senate foyer, Gov. George E. Pataki weighed in. He said he feared that such a law would be impossibly expensive for the state's restaurateurs. By week's end, Mr. Bruno's comments on a smoking ban had softened. The Senate wrapped up the legislative session early Friday morning; Mr. Bruno did not allow the tobacco bill to go to a vote.

On Thursday the Assembly passed its version of the Indoor Clean Air Act, as it is called, but it became one of the dozens of so-called one-house turkeys, bills that fail to secure support in both houses and thus have no chance of becoming law.

Still, to the advocates who had never before even been able to get such a bill introduced in the Legislature, the swiftness with which the bill moved in the Senate, and the tone of the debate surrounding it, signaled a transformation in the way Republicans view this issue.

''The gestalt has changed,'' declared Russell Sciandra, director of the Center for a Tobacco-Free New York. ''These guys are beginning to realize it's what their constituents want. This is like a soccer mom's kind of issue.''

This year was the first in which a Republican sponsored a wholesale ban. The bill would have prohibited smoking in all restaurants, but allowed it in bars; it would not have applied to bingo parlors and bowling alleys. The current state law, which applies only to restaurants with more than 50 seats, allows smoking in a separate section.

New York City has a stricter law than the state does: smoking is allowed only in a separate, ventilated room or in a bar, but restaurants with fewer than 35 seats are exempt.

It is no coincidence that the proposal came from a Long Island lawmaker. Suffolk County has one of the toughest laws in New York. It bans smoking in all restaurants, except those with a separate, ventilated room. Nassau County applies similar restrictions, but only to restaurants with more than 50 seats.

Some Long Island Republican senators have also faced fierce political competition in recent elections. But that, Mr. Fuschillo said, had no bearing on his willingness to take up the cause. ''I'm looking at it strictly as a health issue,'' he said.

Today, Republicans and Democrats alike speak of the health dangers of secondhand smoke. But in recent weeks, the antismoking lobby was particularly buoyed by comments from Mr. Bruno, hardly seen as one of their crusaders. In an article that appeared in The Buffalo News on June 14, Mr. Bruno was quoted as saying, ''People who are exposed to smoking secondhand can be just as dead as people who inhale it themselves directly.''

Then last Tuesday, he told reporters, ''I believe sooner or later it would make sense for the state to have one bill.'' But he added that he was ''also very conscious of the rights of individuals who have a right to smoke.''

If those comments stoked the antismoking lobby's optimism, the governor's comments later that day dashed it. ''Obviously, I am very much against smoking,'' Mr. Pataki said last Tuesday. ''But I'm concerned that if you pass legislation like that, restaurants could be forced to incur tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs to modify their operations.''

Comments by the two Republican leaders led to a spate of lobbying. Public health advocates lashed out at the governor the day after his remarks, arguing that there was no evidence to suggest that business declined after strict smoking laws were enacted -- including in New York City.

The Empire State Tavern and Restaurant Association countered that the proposed statewide ban would keep customers away. Tobacco industry lobbyists descended upon the Senate chamber.

For several days, Mr. Fuschillo held private negotiations with Mr. Bruno. A compromise was floated, to enact a statewide standard but prohibit local governments from passing laws stricter than the state's. As late as Wednesday night, the penultimate day of the Senate's legislative session, Mr. Fuschillo refused to budge.

''I'm not willing to water down the bill,'' he said. ''It's still alive. It's still in negotiations. I'm pleased the level of discussion is still this high.''

Negotiations yielded no deal by late Thursday. That spelled a victory for the tobacco industry, a once-invulnerable lobby whose influence had begun to wane in recent years in Albany. In 1999, the Legislature and Philip Morris, the world's largest tobacco company, were embarrassed by disclosures that the company's chief lobbyist in Albany had violated state law by failing to disclose meals and other gifts bought for legislators.

The state now has the highest cigarette taxes in the country: $1.11 a pack. A fire safety bill passed last year requires that by mid-2003 all cigarettes sold in New York meet flammability standards and put themselves out. Cigarettes are the leading cause of accidental fires.

The restaurant smoking ban, the state antismoking lobby's most radical proposal to date, would have made New York second only to California in terms of the strictness of its smoking law. California has banned smoking in all restaurants and bars.

© 2001 The New York Times Company