The Badger Herald: News: Senate approves statewide smoking ban

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Senate approves statewide smoking ban

Assembly immediately takes up bill; expected to pass

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Also by Associated Press:

UPDATED: CFACT may sue UW if its funding isn't restored (June 29, 2009)

By Associated Press
Wednesday, May 13, 2009 5:23 p.m.

6 Vote 0 Votes

(AP) - The state Senate approved a statewide ban on smoking in all workplaces Wednesday, edging Wisconsin closer to prohibiting smoking in bars, restaurants and hotel rooms.

The Senate approved the measure 25-8 after more than four hours of debate. The Assembly immediately took up the bill. Debate in that house was expected to last for hours as well.

Twenty-five other states already have gone smoke-free. But Wisconsin’s powerful Tavern League has opposed attempts to impose a similar prohibition here, fearing bars would lose too many smoking customers and go out of business.

Nearly 40 local governments have passed their own anti-smoking ordinances, creating a patchwork of regulations that the Tavern League complained pit nonsmoking bars against smoking bars.

The statewide political dynamics changed dramatically when Democrats took control of the Legislature in last November’s elections. Assuming a ban was now inevitable, the tavern lobby and anti-smoking groups hammered out compromise legislation.

Under the bill, the ban would take effect in July 2010. Smokers who violate it would face fines of up to $250. Bar owners who don’t try to stop smokers would first get a warning and then a $100 fine. Local governments couldn’t pass any regulations stricter than the state ban.

Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison, the chief author of the bill, said the prohibition creates fair competition throughout the state and would save both lives and taxpayer dollars on health care expenses. A state Department of Health Services fiscal estimate attached to the bill said the measure would save about $754,000 in Medicaid expenses annually, with savings likely to grow over time.

“I don’t have to tell you about the health effects of smoking,” Risser told the Senate. “We all know it. It is the most preventable cause of illness in the state.”

Senate Republicans - and some Democrats - tried to amend the bill to carve out exemptions, ranging from nursing homes to private country clubs and Middle Eastern restaurants where patrons smoke water pipes. The most contentious amendment was a proposal from Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, that would have allowed hotels to permit smoking in up to 15 percent of their rooms.

Sen. Bob Jauch, D-Poplar, supported the idea, saying he was afraid travelers would pass through Wisconsin for hotels in Minnesota, Illinois and Iowa. Those states all have statewide smoking bans but allow smoking in a percentage hotel rooms.

But Risser and Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-Waunakee, warned the amendments would upset the fragile compromise between the Tavern League and anti-smoking groups.

“It’s not a tough thing to get off the bar stool and step outside and smoke,” said Erpenbach, himself a smoker.

None of the amendments survived.

Early debate in the Assembly was heated, with Republicans bellowing the ban would drive small businesses under.

“I don’t know what you told your mom-and-pop businesses, but I told them I’d leave them alone,” said Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford. “Let them do their business as they see fit.”

6 Comments | Leave a comment

Carol Thompson | May 13, 2009 9:59 PM | Reply
IP hash: 3c72172c

We will never accept this law because it’s based on criminality and corruption and scientific fraud. There have been more than 50 studies, which show that human papillomaviruses cause over ten times more lung cancers than the anti-smokers pretend are caused by secondhand smoke. For socioeconomic reasons, smokers and passive smokers are more likely to have been exposed to this virus. And the anti-smokers purposely use defective studies that are based on nothing but lifestyle questionnaires in order to falsely blame passive smoking for all those extra lung cancers that are really caused by HPV. They are automatically guilty of flagrant scientific fraud for ignoring those 50-plus studies, and lying in our faces that there’s no scientific debate. There’s no scientific debate because these criminals have censored it, not because of lack of scientific evidence!

http://www.smokershistory.com/wismoker.html

Anonymous | May 14, 2009 10:31 AM | Reply
IP hash: 02c70447

really? REALLY? instead of HPV, are you sure it isn’t mullets causing lung cancer? because, ‘for socioeconomic reasons’, smokers and passive smokers are more likely to have been exposed to this hairstyle.

Anonymous | May 14, 2009 1:18 PM | Reply
IP hash: 974fd503

Great!!!! This will effectively ban Our Dear Leader and Smoker In Chief Barrack Obama from ever visiting the Socialist State of Wisconsin again! Ahhhhhh, the Law of Unintended Consequences strikes once more.

Perhaps we should give Barry H.O. a “pass” on this law? Ya think? I mean, we’ve given him a pass on sooooooo many other things! Like a providing a valid US birth certificate, the most fundamental requirement for the office of the US president. Like his claims of “openess and honesty” while continuing to pay legal staff hundreds of thousands of dollars to prevent the release of his acedemic transcripts from 3 universities. Like his claims of being a “constitutional law professor” when he was merely a lecturer at Illinois. Like his Cabinet full of tax cheats. Etc. Ad Nauseum.

Yeah, I’m sure we can do a little Liberal Law bending for Our Dear Marxist Leader! We’ve had lots of practice, just getting the Teleprompter Tyro this far! Besides, those pesky laws should only apply to those damn Conservatives, right? (wink.. wink.. nudge.. nudge!)

Hope! Change!

Anonymous | May 14, 2009 4:18 PM | Reply
IP hash: 974fd503

“Early debate in the Assembly was heated, with Republicans bellowing the ban would drive small businesses under.”

Bellowing, eh? Is that factual news or partisan editorialization? Were the Liberals, AP reporters, and Badger Herald urinalists observed squealing with delight, when the smoking ban passed? Why wasn’t that reported as news? This piece clearly should be on the Editorial page.

Do the Badger Herald editors have a dictionary available, to look up and understand the difference between editorialization and factual news reporting? What do they teach in your Journalism 101 classes? That ad hominem attack is acceptable in news articles?

Carol Thompson | May 16, 2009 2:21 AM | Reply
IP hash: 3c72172c

The Nazis are gloating. They think that after after the ban kicks in, “life will go on as if this drawn-out and draining debate never happened.” No, we will NOT “politely step outside when [we] want to light up,” because we refuse to eat, drink or smoke in any smoke-free prison.

And at the front of our minds, every single second, will be the fact that YOU STOLE OUR FREEDOM. We will never forgive, and we will never forget, that you stole it by lies, fraud, corruption and censorship. You had no compelling health justification, so your lying demagogues committed scientific fraud, and their media accomplices ruthlessly spread their lies and censored the truth.

And, contrary to the ravings of phony “health experts,” the scientific debate is not over. The evidence continues to mount against the anti-smokers’ health lies, whether you psychopaths choose to admit it or not. And it is seared indelibly on our minds.

http://www.smokershistory.com/wismoker.html