RICHMOND -- An attempt to ban smoking in Virginia's public places, including restaurants and bars, appears to be dead for the year.
A House subcommittee declined to take action Thursday on the Virginia Smoke Free Air Act (Senate Bill 1161), leaving the measure technically alive but with its future in doubt.
The subcommittee's intent was to give SB 1161's sponsor, Sen. Brandon Bell, R-Roanoke County, time to work out a compromise with Del. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, who sponsored a different smoking bill approved by the subcommittee last month.
Del. Dave Albo, R-Fairfax County, said he wants to see Bell and Griffith work together to produce "something that everyone hates a little."
But Bell said afterward that with just a little more than two weeks left in the General Assembly session and the two bills "at opposite ends of the spectrum," an agreement is unlikely.
"The timing of things will be difficult as far as what we come up with and what kind of approach we want to take," Bell said. "We may not be able to get there this year."
Griffith, the House majority leader, has generally opposed a broad ban on indoor smoking, and told the General Laws Committee he'd strike his bill if the Senate attempts to make it more restrictive.
He said Thursday he was willing to talk with Bell, but added the committee will have the last word.
"I don't have a problem with working out a compromise," Griffith said. "That being said, the committee's not going to let a whole lot more than my bill go out. ... Just because Brandon and I agree doesn't mean the committee will let it out."
The subcommittee has only one more scheduled meeting, but a special meeting could be called at a later date.
Opponents of SB 1161 argue that it infringes on the private property rights of business owners. They say the free market, not the government, should dictate whether a business bans smoking.
Earlier this session the subcommittee, which branches off the House General Laws Committee, evaluated a slate of bills dealing with secondhand smoke -- including four that mirrored SB 1161. From those, it chose to endorse Griffith's House Bill 2422, which would do away with requirements that restaurants have nonsmoking sections while requiring those restaurants that allow smoking to post signs at each entrance.
HB 2422 was then approved 74-22 by the full House and now awaits consideration by the full Senate.
Bell declined to say whether he'd support Griffith's bill if SB 1161 fails to make it out of committee. However, a coalition of state and national health groups called Virginians for a Healthy Future that backed SB 1161 has stated its opposition to HB 2422 on the grounds that it reduces regulations on indoor smoking.
Bell said that since the last meaningful indoor smoking legislation was passed 17 years ago, he's wary of settling just for the sake of getting something done.
"Once we take that step, this is one of the things we may not come back to for another 15 or 20 years, so we want to make sure it's a good one," Bell said.
Bell has pushed his bill to ban smoking in public areas since last year, when he got a similar version approved by a narrow vote in the Senate before it was left in a House subcommittee.
But he picked up momentum after the U.S. surgeon general issued a June report concluding there is no risk-free exposure to secondhand smoke. Meanwhile, a poll of 625 registered voters released last month by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research showed 71 percent of Virginians favor a statewide law to prohibit smoking in most public places, including bars and restaurants.
In addition to Griffith, five other delegates in the House filed bills to address secondhand smoke in workplaces.
On its way out of the Senate, Bell's SB 1161 picked up two additional votes from last year.
Bell said that even if the Virginia Smoke Free Air Act isn't made into law this year, the subcommittee's decision not to kill the bill shows a change in the political atmosphere on indoor smoking.
"We may not be able to get there this year," Bell said. "It may not be something we can do in the next week to 10 days.
"But again, we've come in extraordinary leaps and bounds over the last 12 months as to where this is being debated in Virginia. And I think that's overwhelmingly a success."
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The Virginia legislature's House General Laws committee, a subcommittee of the House of Delegates, tabled a Senate-passed bill banning public smoking by not voting on it Thursday last week. By tabling the bill, the proposed legislation banning smoking in restaurants, bars and public establishments cannot move to the lower house of the General Assembly for a vote. 

The move by the 6-member subcommittee leaves the House of Delegates two-weeks in the current legislative session to work out a compromise between the tabled SB 1161 Senate bill, and compromise proposals, that could form new indoor smoking laws in the state.

The dichotomy that exists between Virginia's rural areas and its northern sections plays a part in the legislative proposal by delgate H. Morgan Griffith that would require public places that allow smoking to post signs at the entrance that say something as simple as, "Smoking allowed here". 

Smaller mom-and-pop businesses could be affected negatively by a state-wide ban sponsored by public health groups that advocate for a smoke free environment. "Think about your small bars, your local bars -- places where everyone has been going for 20 years and everybody in the place smokes," said co-owner of Henrico County's Sharky's Bar & Billiards in January. 

"The subcommittee's intent was to give SB 1161's sponsor, Sen. Brandon Bell, R-Roanoke County, time to work out a compromise with Del. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, who sponsored a different smoking bill approved by the subcommittee last month," according to Mason Adams of Roanoke.com. 

The Virginia Senate voted 23-16 on Monday last week to pass the smoking ban legislation, garnering two additional votes in favor of the measure than in the previous year.