Plan to soften smoking ban running out of time

After a two-hour hearing in which witnesses could speak no more than five minutes, Assembly Judiciary Chairman Bernie Anderson said Senate Bill 372 may be the victim of the 1998 constitutional amendment limiting the Legislature to 120 days.

In order to adjourn on June 1, many bills, including SB372, must be approved by committees by Friday or they are dead.

“It is clearly a controversial bill, and in these days of 120-day sessions, it might be one of the bills that doesn’t make it,” said Anderson, D-Sparks.

During the hearing, bar owners testified they have lost 20 percent of their business and been forced to lay off employees because of the 2006 voter-approved law that prohibits smoking in restaurants, grocery stores and bars that serve food. Smoking still is allowed in gaming areas of casinos.

The bill, backed 14-5 in the Senate, would allow smoking in taverns and bars that serve food as long as minors are not permitted on the premises.

Anderson and others suggested during the hearing that if the bill were to pass, then such bars should erect large signs telling patrons that smoking is permitted.

Legislators are not allowed to change voter-approved laws until three years after their passage. SB 372, if passed, would go into effect on Dec. 9.

Smoking ban supporters fought back against tavern owners who support the bill by testifying that a UNLV study that found 170 bars and restaurants have opened in Clark County since the smoking ban went into effect in December 2006.

That study also showed bar and restaurant sales had started to decline six months before the ban, and their losses since then have been equivalent to other businesses hurt by the recession.

Dr. Nancy York, the study’s lead author and a nursing professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said individual taverns may have suffered because of the smoking ban, but the industry overall has been behaving like the entire economy.

Tavern owners had testified their sales dropped with the smoking ban and the losses occurred long before the recession.

Speaking for tavern owners, lobbyist Jim Wadhams said the bill gives taverns a choice. They can decide if they have sufficient clientele that wants a smoking ban and keep it that way, or allow smoking and lose customers who do not like smoking.

“People who do not want to be around second-hand smoke should have ample opportunity” to decide what business to frequent, he said.

But Assemblyman William Horne, D-Las Vegas, said he has heard from his constituents and they believe that changing the law now would thwart the will of the voters.

Contact Review-Journal reporter Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3901.