State Update
12-14-2006
The chief sponsor of a statewide smoking ban says his goal is to “remove the threat of second-hand smoke from all public places.”
Bars currently are exempt from the ban. State Sen. Ralph Kilzer, R-Bismarck, said he will propose tougher restrictions when the Legislature meets next year.
Minnesota health groups have said they plan to propose a smoking ban in that state’s Legislature as well.
“They even talked about passing it in the first week,” Kilzer said about the Minnesota Legislature. “If that would happen (early in the session), I would think that would remove some of the opposition to the North Dakota bill.”
That opposition could come from people worried about giving North Dakotans a reason to cross into Minnesota to smoke, he said.
A Minnesota ban including all state restaurants and bars “probably would level out the playing field a little more than it is now” with North Dakota, said Carry Kaltenberg, a coordinator for the Grand Forks Public Health Department’s tobacco prevention program.
She also coordinates the Grand Forks Tobacco Free Coalition.
The executive director of the North Dakota Hospitality Association said bar owners likely would fight legislation to ban smoking in their businesses, even if they already ban smoking.
“The association feels that it’s a rights issue,” said Nicki Weissman. “It’s business owners who should make that decision. “
Rep. Dwight Wrangham, R-Bismarck, the executive director of The Coin and Tavern Association, a group representing owners of bars and coin-operated machines, said the local tavern is like a “blue-collar workers’ country club, where they gather and – like it or not – they smoke.”
July 30, 2006
Legislators and state health officials predict there will be an effort to make bars in North Dakota smoke-free. But they say it could be a tough sell.
The statewide smoking ban will be a year old on Tuesday. The law bars indoor smoking in restaurants and most other public buildings. Bars are exempt.
Bismarck state Senator Ralph Kilzer sponsored the law. He says he’s not ready yet to decide whether he’ll push for smoke-free bars.
Minot Representative Clara Sue Price says she’s not had the same type of push for smoke-free bars as she got to make restaurants smoke-free.
The North Dakota Hospitality Association’s executive director says smoking in workplaces is a private business issue. Nicki Weissman says forcing bars to go smoke-free would be taking away the rights of adults who choose to go in.
The director of North Dakota’s Tobacco Prevention and Control Program, Kathleen Mangskau, says compliance with the smoking ban appears to be high. She says about 80 percent of North Dakotans are nonsmokers.
The North Dakota Tobacco Quitline plans to celebrate the anniversary of the law by offering free nicotine replacement patches or gum to the first 50 callers who enroll in counseling on Tuesday.
Bar owners form association to counter anti-smoking groups
Jun. 11, 2006
BISMARCK, N.D. – Bar owners have formed a group to counter any attempts to include their businesses in North Dakota’s statewide smoking ban.
“We are going to prepare for any challenges brought in the 2007 Legislature,” said Rep. Dwight Wrangham, R-Bismarck, executive director of the Coin and Tavern Association.
Soon after the 2005 Legislature passed a bill that bans smoking in most public places, the Public Education Task Force on Tobacco began airing television and radio ads describing bars as dangerous places where people are exposed to airborne chemicals.
Wrangham said he expects a bill to be introduced next year to ban smoking in bars.
Sen. Ralph Kilzer, R-Bismarck, the main sponsor of the anti-smoking bill in 2005, said anti-smoking groups have discussed a bill to include bars, but he does not know if one will be introduced.
Pat McGeary, a coordinator with the Bismarck Tobacco Free Coalition, said she is not aware of any efforts to ban smoking in bars. However, McGeary said many U.S. cities have smoke-free bars, and someday the same will happen in North Dakota.
“It’s definitely a trend,” she said.
Wrangham said the Coin and Tavern Association, a grass-roots effort among bar owners and owners of coin-operated machines, has about 100 members so far.
That group and the North Dakota Hospitality Association are criticizing the Public Education Task Force on Tobacco for spending large amounts of money on advertising that attacks bars.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s harassing the bar people,” said Nicki Weissman, executive director of the Hospitality Association. “I don’t call that education.”
Carrie Kaltenberg, chairwoman of the Public Education Task Force on Tobacco, said the group has budgeted $375,000 on advertising in the 2005-07 biennium. Those costs include buying air time and paying an ad agency to develop an advertising strategy and produce radio ads.
Kaltenberg said advocating for smoke-free working environments is one of the goals.
“Every worker in their workplace should be free of secondhand smoke,” she said.
Many members of the Coin and Tavern Association are posting signs outside their doors that warn patrons that people might be smoking. Wrangham said workers also have a choice to not apply for a job at a bar if they don’t like smoke.
“There are hazards to just about any job,” he said.
The Coin and Tavern Association does not plan to use advertising to get its message out, but it is circulating a petition in bars asking the Public Education Task Force on Tobacco to concentrate on smoking cessation and prevention, instead of attacking bars.
Kilzer said there is nothing wrong with the task force spending money to oppose smoking in bars.
“Bars need to be attacked because that’s where the big problem is,” he said.
Smoking signals
June 11, 2006
By TOM RAFFERTY
Bismarck Tribune
By TOM RAFFERTY
Bismarck Tribune
The first shot in the war against smoking in bars was fired months ago by North Dakota’s local public health units, and now bar owners are fighting back.
Soon after the 2005 Legislature passed a bill that bans smoking in many public places – bars being one exception – the Public Education Task Force on Tobacco began airing TV and radio ads describing bars as dangerous places where people are exposed to airborne chemicals.
The ads, which end with, “Smoke-free workplaces are a good idea everywhere, even bars,” have angered bar owners to the point that they formed the Coin and Tavern Association to specifically fight any attempt to ban smoking in bars.
Rep. Dwight Wrangham, R-Bismarck, is the current executive director of the new association.
Although no one has said there will be a bill to ban smoking in bars in 2007, Wrangham said it is very likely that one will be introduced.
“We are going to prepare for any challenges brought in the 2007 Legislature,”Wrangham said.
Sen. Ralph Kilzer, R-Bismarck, the main sponsor of the anti-smoking bill in 2005, said he doesn’t know if a bill will be introduced, but that anti-smoking groups have discussed it.
Senate Bill 2300 originally included a ban on smoking in bars, but that ban was stripped from the bill before it passed in 2005. The final version of the bill passed the Senate by a vote of 33-11 and the House by a vote of 61 to 32.
Kilzer, a retired doctor, said it is his goal to pass a bill like SB2300 was in its original form.
Pat McGeary, a coordinator with the Bismarck Tobacco Free Coalition, said she is not aware of any efforts to ban smoking in bars.
However, McGeary said many cities throughout the nation have smoke-free bars, and that someday the same will happen in North Dakota.
“It’s definitely a trend,” McGeary said.
Wrangham said the Coin and Tavern Association, which will be a grassroots effort among bar owners and owners of coin-operated machines, has about 100 members so far.
The organization doesn’t plan on placing any advertisements to counter the anti-smoking groups.
Costly advertising
It would take a lot of money to outdo the advertising campaign put on by the Public Education Task Force on Tobacco.
Carrie Kaltenberg, chairwoman of the Public Education Task Force on Tobacco, said the task force has budgeted $375,000 on advertising in the 2005-07 biennium. Those costs include buying air time and paying an ad agency to develop an advertising strategy and produce radio ads.
“Placement of the ads is the largest cost,” Kaltenberg said.
The task force was created by public health officers so that health units could pool their tobacco lawsuit settlement money together to fund educational campaigns against smoking.
The task force has paid for a series of TV and radio commercials that began in July of last year.
Odney Advertising of Bismarck creates the radio ads for the task force, but the TV ads were purchased by other companies and a tagline is added to suit North Dakota markets.
The task force is funded 100 percent by money given to them by all of the 38 local district health units in the state. Kaltenberg said the health units don’t have to give the task force money, but they all do.
The Coin and Tavern Association and the North Dakota Hospitality Association have criticized the task force for spending large amounts of money on advertising that attacks bars.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s harassing the bar people,” Nicki Weissman, executive director of the Hospitality Association, said. “I don’t call that education.”
Kaltenberg said media and educational campaigns about tobacco are known as “best practices” by the Centers for Disease Control. She said the goal is to increase the knowledge and evaluate attitudes people have and actions they take about smoking.
Advocating for smoke-free working environments also is one of their goals.
“Every worker in their workplace should be free of second-hand smoke,” Kaltenberg said.
Wrangham complained that the the task force is spending so much money to oppose smoking in bars when they should spend it on cessation efforts, especially since a state program ran out supplies used to help people quit smoking.
Kathleen Mangskau, director of the Health Department’s Division of Tobacco Prevention and Control, said callers to the North Dakota Tobacco Quitline get five free sessions of counseling, and until supplies ran out in March, they could have received a 28-day supply of tobacco patches or gum if they made less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level.
“There’s more demand than there is money,”Mangskau said.
The Quitline has been so popular that Mangskau wants to ask the Legislature if the money for other smoking cessation programs can be diverted to the Quitline.
Mangskau said the health department will be asking the Legislature in 2007 to transfer extra money in state, city and county employee cessation programs to the Quitline. She said there could be as much as $150,000 of funds that aren’t being used in the those programs that the Quitline could use.
According to Mangskau, the department spent $50,000 on patches and gum in the fiscal year which runs from July 1, 2005, to June 30, 2006.
The 2005-07 appropriation for the Quitline was $884,000, the appropriation for a state employee cessation program was $195,000, and $195,000 for the city-county employee smoking cessation program.
The success rate of smokers is about double if they use nicotine replacement therapy, which includes patches and gum, she said.
“We feel it is a very important part of that service,”Mangskau said.
Although Wrangham would like to see some of the money from the task force spent on patches and gum, Mangskau said the Quitline and the task force are two separate programs.
Responsibilities
Aside from the arguments about how money should be spent on anti-smoking efforts, bar owners view a smoking ban as government control into their business.
Al Leier, owner of the Main Street Bar in Bismarck, said instead of the government imposing rules against smokers, the debate should be about the choices individuals make.
Leier said more than half of the establishments that sell alcohol in Bismarck are now smoke free because of a city ordinance that bans smoking in restaurants. That ordinance bans smoking in bars that are connected to restaurants even if the bar is separately enclosed and has its own ventilation.
“They can choose to go somewhere to breathe clean air and they can leave me alone,” Leier said.
Many of the members of the Coin and Tavern Association are posting signs outside their doors that warn patrons that people may be smoking. The signs say that if a person thinks second-hand smoke is harmful, they should not enter. Leier has one of those signs on his door.
Wrangham said workers also have a choice to not apply for a job at a bar if they don’t like smoke.
“There are hazards to just about any job,” Wrangham said.
The Coin and Tavern Association is also circulating a petition in bars asking Public Education Task Force on Tobacco to concentrate on smoking cessation and prevention, instead of attacking bars through advertisements. Wrangham said the petition has no legal use, but it will be presented to the task force to show that there is opposition to the ads.
Kilzer said banning smoking in bars is a public health decision that could prevent business from being sued by workers. Kilzer said there is nothing wrong with the task force spending money to oppose smoking in bars.
“Bars need to be attacked because that’s where the big problem is,” Kilzer said.
Businesses, police still trying to adjust to smoking ban
August 4, 2005
A smoking ban for most North Dakota businesses is causing quite a few ripples since it took effect Monday.
Police in Grand Forks and Minot have raided bingo parlors — scooping up ash trays and telling smokers to snuff out their cigarettes.
In the small town of Mott, an economic development group has bought the city’s only coin-operated laundry from a man who shut down the business in protest over the smoking ban.
Kathleen Mangskau is director of the Health Department’s tobacco prevention and control program. She says the department has had calls from people who are not happy with the new law — but there haven’t been that many.
And she says some people have called wanting a stricter smoking ban.
Mangskau says she thinks that overall, the public is pleased with the law.
The law bans smoking in public areas and workplaces. Bars are exempt, unless they have a restaurant in the smoking area.
Smoking ban too vague for now
July 31, 2005
By DAVE BUNDY, for the Tribune
By DAVE BUNDY, for the Tribune
Light up in the wrong place Monday, and it’ll cost you, up to $500 if you’re puffing away and anywhere from $100 to $500 if you’re a proprietor who knowingly allows it.
North Dakota’s anti-smoking law takes effect Monday. It bans smoking in most public buildings and private ones where the public can gather. This includes virtually all workplaces, including restaurants.
The most notable exemption from the law is bars, but there are others spelled out in the law.
In January, as the Legislature stood poised to debate this issue, the Tribune urged the state to back off.
If a smoking ban was warranted, local control was the answer — the more local the better, to the point that the best course of action, the Tribune argued, was to let individual businesses set their own policies. In effect, let the marketplace legislate a smoking ban by the businesses customers choose to patronize and the places people choose to work.
Barring that, granting local governments the power to set their own policies made the most sense. Local entities could address local needs, offer guidance to businesses with questions and set up guidelines they were willing and able to enforce.
What the Legislature passed — and what goes into effect Monday — is a statewide law with just enough wiggle room to confuse some business owners and employers, and no one willing or legally able to help them interpret it.
An Associated Press story in the July 24 Tribune highlighted the trouble.
On the state level, where the law was passed, Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem told AP writer Dale Wetzel that decisions on prosecution (in effect, interpretations of the law) would have to be made by the counties or cities, where the infraction would be prosecuted.
But the two county state’s attorneys Wetzel spoke with would not advise specific businesses on the fine points of the law. They referred questions back to the businesses’ private attorneys.
Private attorneys can provide their best advice, but they’re not the ones charged with enforcing the law and ultimately interpreting the areas where the law is vague. Businesses with legitimate questions about how the law affects them deserve straight answers from someone connected with the law’s enforcement.
Understanding the frustration some business people might feel, Stenehjem noted that a business person contemplating an expensive remodeling job or an even more expensive change in business practices would want someone in authority to assure him or her the changes satisfy the law.
No one disputes the benefits of clean air, and the questions surrounding this law will be answered over time as it is enforced and legal precedent is set.
Let’s hope that in the meantime, businesses, employees, customers and law enforcement act constructively to sort out the unresolved issues.
http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2005/07/31/news/editorials/edt01.txt
Law enforcers staying mum about new smoking law
July 23, 2005
DALE WETZEL
Associated Press
DALE WETZEL
Associated Press
BISMARCK, N.D. – A week before North Dakota’s new anti-smoking law takes effect, business people are asking how they can avoid fines for trying to accommodate employees and customers who light up – and they’re not getting answers.
What’s a restaurant? What’s a bar? Can someone smoke on a restaurant’s outdoor deck? The questions are important because bars are exempt from the state no-smoking law, while restaurants are not.
If you’re a business owner, how do you handle it when someone walks in and illegally fires up a smoke? The law says the smoker may be fined as much as $500, but the business also may be fined at least $100, if its proprietor willfully allowed the violation.
“To me, we need something that tells the business community that, ‘Look, if somebody lights up a cigarette, you ask them to put it out, and at that point in time, you are no longer liable,”‘ said Dave MacIver, president of the Greater North Dakota Chamber of Commerce.
“You can’t expect a business man or business woman to go up to someone and tell them to put out a cigarette – and if they tell you ‘No,’ then are you going to put them in a hammerlock or something?” MacIver asked.
The law takes effect Aug. 1, a week from Monday. Business people who have approached county prosecutors and Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem’s office with compliance questions have been told they should consult their own lawyers.
“We really don’t tell them anything,” said Richard Riha, the Burleigh County state’s attorney. “We can’t give a private business legal advice … We aren’t being very helpful to the businesses, because we really can’t be.”
Birch Burdick, the Cass County state’s attorney, says it is difficult for a county prosecutor to answer questions about how the law may apply to a specific business.
Fargo and West Fargo already have their own anti-smoking ordinances, but Burdick says some rural establishments have questions about the state law’s application.
In one case, Harwood’s American Legion club put some questions in writing, and his office replied, but the response emphasized that club officials should consult their own lawyer, Burdick said.
“Unless you fully understand the circumstances, your answers can be either misunderstood, or somehow misremembered, later,” Burdick said. “I’m kind of careful not to give overly specific information, unless somebody was to give me a lot of detail about what they’re doing. I’m just trying to avoid misunderstandings.”
Last week, North Dakota’s Health Department began circulating a brochure listing answers to some of the most common questions local and state officials have heard.
Most of the brochure’s text simply repeats excerpts from the new law without interpretation, although there is some advice. Businesses may not have smoking rooms. Folding walls aren’t good enough to wall off a restaurant’s bar area. Customers who are smoking illegally should be warned, and the police summoned if they refuse to stop. No-smoking signs aren’t required, but they may help cut down on violations.
Kathleen Mangskau, director of the Health Department’s tobacco prevention and control program, said the department and local health agencies are pushing the option of a smoke-free business.
“It’s the simplest way, and it is not costly, because they don’t have to build a wall,” Mangskau said.
Stenehjem issued a formal legal opinion last month to Grafton’s city attorney, who had questions about how the city’s own anti-smoking ordinance meshed with the new state law. The law allows local governments to approve tougher anti-smoking rules, but not more lenient ones.
The attorney general is preparing a second opinion, requested by Sen. Richard Brown, R-Fargo, who is asking how much food a bar (where smoking is allowed) may serve before it’s considered a restaurant (where it isn’t). Although smoking is banned in restaurants, a restaurant with an enclosed bar may allow smoking in the bar.
Stenehjem said the anti-smoking bill did not give any state agency authority to draft rules to clear up some of the common questions that have arisen, a provision he believes would have been an improvement. Departments often write rules to flesh out legislation, a process that includes a public hearing and a review by a legislative committee.
In any case, decisions on whether to prosecute violations are made in county courthouses, not the Capitol, Stenehjem said.
“I can’t give an answer to somebody, no matter how much I want to, that will stick if a state’s attorney decides they’re going to prosecute somebody for violating the law,” he said.
Stenehjem acknowledges his explanations sound like buck-passing. “People do think that we’re giving them the runaround,” he said.
Violations of the anti-smoking law are infractions, which is the least serious classification in North Dakota’s criminal law. The maximum penalty is a $500 fine. Infractions do not carry jail time.
Restaurant-bar owners who are considering remodeling projects to cater to their smoking clientele want to know whether the projects will satisfy the law’s requirements, Stenehjem said. Private attorneys can give advice on whether a project compiles with the law, but that does not provide complete assurance that the changes are sufficient, the attorney general said.
Dick Geigle, owner of The Brass Rail Grill & Bar in Jamestown, said he is temporarily handling the problem by putting up a wall with a door, in an opening that has been used to go from the Brass Rail’s restaurant into a separate bar and restaurant.
At present, the door opening has heavy plastic strips, similar to what restaurateurs use to keep cold air in a walk-in freezer.
“It’s a temporary wall, until everybody decides what they want. Some people say this will (comply with the law), some people say it won’t, so we’re waiting for some guidance from somebody,” Geigle said.
“We go to the city, we go to the state’s attorney, and they say, ‘We’re trying to figure out the law ourselves,'” Geigle said. “Nobody knows what the law is, so we’re just going to do the best we can.”
http://wwwgrandforks.com/mld/grandforks/12207480.htm
Workers’ health can’t be walled off
July 8, 2005
BISMARCK – North Dakota is taking steps towards better health with a clean indoor air law that will take effect Aug. 1. The downside is that some restaurants will use a loophole in the law by enclosing the bar area so that smoking can continue.
Customers and employees should read the writing on the wall: If a business owner builds a wall to allowing smoking in the bar area, they are sending a clear message. They have no concern for the health of their customers or employees. Dangerous toxins will seep into the “clean” part of the establishment and the staff who serve customers in the bar will continue to be exposed to secondhand smoke.
Smoke-free laws are designed to protect the health of our communities. Building walls makes these protections ineffective. Smoke in the bar area of a busy restaurant, with doors opening and closing, will reach diners and put them at risk for heart attack, stroke, cancer and all the other effects of secondhand smoke.
Totally smoke-free is the only way to go. If you see a wall being built at your local restaurant, the message is clear – your health doesn’t matter.
The new statewide smoke-free law is an important first step. We will continue to work with policymakers and health groups to bring 100 percent smoke-free protections to North Dakota.
June Herman
Herman is senior director of advocacy for the North Dakota chapter of the American Heart Association.
Herman is senior director of advocacy for the North Dakota chapter of the American Heart Association.
*************
In search of victims of secondhand smoke
PHILADELPHIA – Grand Forks’ upcoming smoking ban was passed without a sunset provision for bars, much to the chagrin of Grand Forks City Council member Dorette Kerian, who’d said a sunset provision would give hope to bar workers.
If Grand Forks is anything like Philadelphia or any other city where I’ve talked to bar workers about smoking bans, I’m wondering just which workers Kerian wants to give hope to. Every legitimate survey that was limited to bar workers indicates that well over 80 percent, even well over 90 percent, of them are strongly against total government-imposed bans. My own experience in talking to such workers has given me similar numbers.
Is Kieran being honest in her representation that she is trying to give hope to bar workers? If she is, could she supply a list of just 10 such workers in Grand Forks who would support a total government-mandated ban? Or is that akin to the request that the antismoking lobby supply a list of the deaths caused by secondary smoke in Grand Forks?
If the extremists in Grand Forks are operating out of the same playbook as those in other cities, I’m sure they’ve floated a body-count number before the council. And, if they’re the same as in other cities, that body-count is pure anonymous speculation and imagination: invisible bodies stacked in an invisible corner next Jimmy Hoffa’s grave and watched over by O.J.’s “real killer.”
To date, there has never yet been a study indicating any degree of long-term harm from exposure to the low levels of secondary smoke that would be encountered in any modern and well-ventilated commercial establishment – and there is unlikely to ever be such a study.
Michael J. McFadden
Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains”
http://www.smokersclubinc.com/antibrains.html
http://smokersclubinc.com/
Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains”
http://www.smokersclubinc.com/antibrains.html
http://smokersclubinc.com/
N.D. Approve Smoking Ban for Restaurants
April 18, 2005
By DALE WETZEL Associated Press Writer
By DALE WETZEL Associated Press Writer
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — The state House approved an indoor smoking ban for restaurants, government buildings and most businesses on Monday.
The legislation is not as strict as many anti-smoking activists wanted and many states have enacted. It exempts bars and allows motels to offer smoking rooms to customers.
“It is a compromise,” said Democratic Rep. Lee Kaldor. “It’s not saying that people can’t smoke. … It’s just saying where they can smoke.”
The North Dakota House voted 61-32 to approve the bill. The Senate had already endorsed the measure last week. It now heads to Republican Gov. John Hoeven for final approval, which spokesman Don Canton said is likely.
“We’ll have to study it, but looks to be close to what the governor has said he supports,” Canton said Monday.
Critics have contended for more than a decade that a smoking ban takes away individual and property rights by dictating whether private businesses can allow smoking.
But Kaldor said it is not a local control issue because it is “intended to protect people’s health. That is a statewide interest.”
The bill could take effect by Aug. 1. It also allows smoking in rooms rented for private functions, if children are excluded, and at “a traditional American Indian spiritual or cultural ceremony.”
But it would ban puffers from the Capitol’s own smoking room, a tiny hideaway created when then-Gov. George Sinner banned smoking in the building in 1990.
http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId;=1020925&tw;=wn_wire_story
http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId;=1020925&tw;=wn_wire_story
House guts, then defeats anti-smoking measure
February 17, 2005
DALE WETZEL
Associated Press
DALE WETZEL
Associated Press
BISMARCK, N.D. – Anti-smoking legislation was stripped of most of its provisions, then defeated in the North Dakota House, where lawmakers objected to a smoking ban on most state property.
The proposed one-paragraph addition to state law would have prohibited smoking on buildings and grounds that were owned or leased by the state.
The state mental hospital at Jamestown was given an exemption, as were the campuses of North Dakota’s public colleges, which are under the jurisdiction of the state Board of Higher Education.
Rep. Bette Grande, R-Fargo, said it would require state Capitol employees who smoke to go completely off the grounds for a puff. They would have to walk several hundred yards.
“If they want to have their break, and take their cigarette break, they leave the grounds,” Grande said. “They don’t go to their car, they don’t stand outside the building.”
Representatives voted 47-45 on Thursday to defeat the legislation. In past sessions, the House has been hostile to regulating smoking within private businesses.
Rep. Al Carlson, R-Fargo, a developer and office building owner, said he leases space in one of his buildings to a state agency. The legislation might impose smoking restrictions on the entire building as a result, Carlson said.
“Just because they lease part of my building, therefore the grounds and the rest of my building, which I own, are off limits for anybody smoking,” Carlson said. “I don’t think that’s right.”
As introduced, the legislation barred smoking in most indoor workplaces, if the public had access to them. Bars, fraternal clubs and rooms hired for private functions would have been exempt.
The six-page bill was trimmed to a single page, and its references to smoking regulation on private property were removed.
The North Dakota Senate has approved separate legislation, which the House will take up later, that bars smoking in most indoor workplaces.
Tobacco retailers, and hotel rooms that are designated for smoking, are exempt under the Senate bill, which was endorsed Wednesday. Smoking would be allowed in bars and private clubs until August 2007, when it would be banned.
—
The House bill is HB1030. The Senate bill is SB2300.
http://www.grandforks.com/
http://www.grandforks.com/
NORTH DAKOTA LEGISLATURE: Tobacco ban gets lit up in House
Bill sponsored by Grand Forks Republican defeated by 88-4 vote
Bill sponsored by Grand Forks Republican defeated by 88-4 vote
Jan. 21, 2003
By Xiao Zhang
Herald Staff Writer
By Xiao Zhang
Herald Staff Writer
BISMARCK – North Dakota House representatives Monday voted overwhelmingly against a bill proposing to ban tobacco sales in the state.
The measure, which would make selling or using tobacco products except for using it for relgious purposes misdemeanors, failed by an 88-4 vote.
The bill would have made it a crime to sell or use tobacco in North Dakota, with sellers facing a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a $2,000 fine. The bill labeled smoking, chewing or using smokeless tobacco as a less severe crime, punishable by 30 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.
GF sponsor
The bill’s sole sponsor, Grand Forks Republican Rep. Mike Grosz, said he was disappointed by Monday’s vote.
But “it did get a fair day in the sun and generated a lot of discussion,” said Grosz, a member of the House Finance and Taxation Committee, which heard the bill last week.
Before the bill went to a vote on the floor, Grosz told his fellow representatives that tobacco costs the state close to 1,000 lives every year and $351 million in medical and productivity costs. Tobacco taxes are expected to bring $39.7 million to North Dakota’s treasury during the state’s current two-year budget period, which ends in June.
“It seems the only gainers from allowing the use of this product are the big tobacco companies and groups, such as the government and organizations, which tax the product or sue the companies,” he said.
Grosz said he would vote against all other measures on tobacco, including a tax increase, because trying to reduce tobacco use through those measures is like “putting a bandage on a severed leg.”
Gov. John Hoeven’s proposed two-year budget for North Dakota state government includes an increase in tobacco taxes, which would increase the levy on a pack of cigarettes from 44 cents to 79 cents.
Passed committee
Rep. Wes Belter, R-Leonard, chairman of the Finance and Taxation Committee, said he decided to vote no on the floor Monday because he believe prohibition would drive smoking underground.
His committee heard the bill last week and recommended a “do pass” on the bill by a 9-4 vote. Six of the nine committee members who voted yes on the bill changed their vote on the floor Monday.
Belter told the House that committee members were frustrated last week with the testimony from anti-tobacco groups that testified against the tobacco ban, including the North Dakota Medical Association, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, American Lung Association, North Dakota Public Health Association and North Dakota Nurses Association.
There’s no evidence banning tobacco would prevent and reduce tobacco use because no such approach has been implemented, the groups argued. The ban also could take away certain funding forthese groups for tobacco control programs.
The North Dakota Grocer’s Association supported the bill. Tom Woodmansee, the association’s president, told lawmakers during the committee hearing that retailers have to spend too much time and money training employees on proper procedures for proof-of-age in selling tobacco products. He said retailers are subject to undercover stings by local law enforcement, fines and license suspension.
Belter did point out that legislators are “hooked on tobacco,” even though not all smoke.
“It is time for us to think about just how hooked we are on tobacco, whether we smoke or not,” he said.
Zhang covers the North Dakota Legislature. She can be reached at (701) 255-5520 or xzhang@gfherald.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
