The last gasp of public smoking in Oregon took a final puff Tuesday before Gov. Ted Kulongoski signed a bill into law that banned smoking in bars, bowling alleys and bingo halls.
Those establishments will become smoke-free in January 2009, but hotels will still be able to designate up to 25 percent of their rooms for smoking and smoke shops and cigar bars will be exempt.
Kristina Edmunson a spokeswoman for the governor said Kulongoski discussed how some bills are transformational in scope, and he considers this to be one for that category.
“For the 35,000 workers who have endured smoke in the workplace this about a legacy,” she said.
Supporters of the ban have worked through multiple sessions of the legislature to pass the legislation. In 2001, the state outlawed smoking in businesses but exempted bars, bars inside restaurants, taverns, bowling alleys and bingo halls.
A July 2001 citywide ordinance in Eugene made smoking in bars and bingo halls illegal, but only two other Oregon cities – Corvallis and Philomath – have similar laws.
“It’s huge and, obviously, we are thrilled,” American Lung Association of Oregon CEO Sue Fratt said.
The move to ban indoor public smoking was a not swift or without opponents, Fratt said.
Since the passage of the state’s workplace smoking ban the ALAO had formed a coalition with local chapters of the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association to make remaining public workplaces smoke-free.
“Some of the challenges came from the Oregon Restaurant Association and the tobacco industry itself,” Fratt said.
Oregon Restaurant Association Director of Government Relations Bill Perry said business revenue will suffer somewhat under the smoking ban, but the larger issue is the state’s income.
“I don’t think the state has accurately projected the loss of lottery revenue,” he said.
Perry said that in other regions where indoor smoking was banned lottery revenue dropped anywhere from 9 to 13 percent.
“For every dollar that goes into a video poker machine, the state gets 78 cents,” he said. Lose that income and you lose a lot of the budget.
State Senator Ginny Burdick (D-district 18), one of the bill’s sponsors, previously told the Emerald that after the ban in Eugene such revenue eventually recovered.
For Fratt, the decrease in lottery revenue is not equivalent to the other costs that are not as easily calculated.
“For all the medical bills going to be saved by the state and for the health of Oregonians it outweighs the small costs of a loss of lottery funds,” she said.
Currently, more than 80 percent of the U.S. population are non-smokers.
Washington state residents passed an initiative by a 63 percent vote that banned smoking in all public places in November 2005.
Smoke-free laws that include restaurants and bars have been passed in 20 states in the U.S., as well as Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico.
Contact the news editor at [email protected]