Opponents of smoking ban attempt to snuff out law

June 25,1998

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Stymied by a state Senate committee, opponents of the nation's first statewide ban on bar smoking are trying a new tactic to snuff out the nearly 6-month-old law.

A spokesman for Senate leader John Burton predicted Wednesday that the move wouldn't work.

Opponents this week amended language allowing smoking in California bars and gambling clubs into a bill that has already passed the Senate and is awaiting a hearing in an Assembly committee.

An earlier repeal measure has been bottled up in the Senate Health and Human Services Committee since March.

The American Cancer Society said Wednesday the amendments are an attempt to circumvent the normal legislative process and avoid full Senate hearings on the issue.

''The tobacco industry gets points for persistence, but not for putting the health interests of Californians first,'' said Alan Henderson, president of the society's California division. ''They're like the Energizer bunny of the Legislature.''

A spokesman for the National Smokers Alliance, the tobacco-industry-funded group that is sponsoring the bill, denied his organization was trying to short-circuit the legislative process.

''We are political realists,'' said spokesman Gary Auxier. ''This was the opportunity and this was the piece of legislation that we are able to get before the Senate.

''Eventually the Senate is going to have to vote on this,'' he added. ''I don't know how that is getting around the process.''

Sandy Harrison, a spokesman for Burton, D-San Francisco, said the bill would be referred back to a Senate committee, probably the Health and Human Services Committee, if it passes the Assembly.

''My read is that it's not going to be a successful ploy,'' he said of the ban opponents' new strategy.