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State restrictions would extend ban to county
Published 2/26/2010 in Local News
By SHAJIA AHMAD
What Garden City resident Ken Dell appreciates about the city-wide smoking ban is that it allows him two options.
"I'm a smoker, but it's nice to be able to go to a place where there's no smoking, too," Dell said Thursday night, while enjoying a few beers with friends at Shooters, a local bar west of town, where smoking is allowed. "Now you have a choice."
But come this summer, when a statewide smoking ban is likely to go into effect, that choice may become much more limited.
A landmark bill banning smoking in restaurants, bars and other public places cleared the Kansas Legislature Thursday in a narrow 68-54 House vote and is now awaiting Gov. Mark Parkinson's signature. The Senate had approved the same bill last year.
Once signed, the ban would take effect July 1, making Kansas one of more than 30 states that already ban smoking in indoor public places. The statewide ban also would affect bars and restaurants outside city limits that currently don't fall under the jurisdiction of the city-wide ban.
Parkinson called for a statewide public smoking ban during his January State of the State address, encouraging policies that would protect the public against secondhand smoke, and has already said he supports the bill that would ban smoking in restaurants, bars, workplaces and other businesses. Under the state ban, smoking still would be permitted in tobacco shops, private clubs, designated smoking rooms in hotels, and the gambling floors of state-owned casinos, the last being a stipulation many House members against the bill deemed a "double-standard" on the part of the state during Thursday's vote.
The likely state ban will not replace stricter local smoking ordinances now in place, such as in Garden City, where smoking is banned in private clubs such as the American Legion, Eagles Lodge and Knights of Columbus.
The local ban went into effect in 2007, making the city the first in southwest Kansas to follow suit with other cities and counties already banning smoking to some degree, currently about 40 localities across the state.
Donna Gerstner, assistant superintendent at the Garden City Recreation Commission and a representative of the Finney County Health Coalition that represents 36 area health and social service agencies, said her coalition is excited to hear the news, especially because a "silent majority" of non-smokers will benefit once the bill is signed into law.
"In every situation you've got people for and against, but what people need to realize is that only about 20 percent of the population are smokers and 80 percent are not," Gerstner said. "We wish the bill could also have been a little stricter — people in casinos have to breath, too."
Shooters owner Kelli Crouch, one of several establishments that could be affected if and when a ban goes into effect, expressed disappointment at the news but declined to comment further on Thursday.
In Thursday's House vote, Reps. Larry Powell, R-Garden City, Melvin Neufeld, R-Ingalls, and Gary Hayzlett, R-Lakin, voted against the ban. Rep. Jeff Whitham, R-Garden City, admitted he "went against the grain" by voting in favor of the ban but cited the harmful effects of secondhand smoke.
"It's a bit of a conundrum, but it deals with something that will improve the health of Kansans. Yes, it's also another case of the state government telling people how to behave, but you have to work through that somehow and decide which is more important," Whitham said today.
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