The Vanderburgh County Commissioners appear likely this week to pass unanimously a strong anti-smoking ordinance, the first phase of which will go into effect in January. It eventually will ban smoking even in bars by 2009. Evansville's City Council, meanwhile, also looks poised to pass a smoking law, but the bill's sponsors are being forced to pay a price to get enough votes. The city measure is expected to be missing some teeth when it reaches the mayor's desk. Compromises still were being worked out over the weekend toward a diluted nonsmoking law that could survive a divided council. City Council co-sponsor Steve Bagbey, D-2nd Ward, on Friday predicted "identical" ordinances in city and county. But in answer to follow-up questions, Bagbey said he did not expect immediate compatibility.
City and county officials have suggested that a measure as strong as the commissioners were intent on passing in the county would face defeat in the city.
At the same time, County Commissioner Tom Shetler Jr. said Friday any gaps between the county and city measures could be closed by passage of additional city smoking restrictions over the next 2½ years.
City Council supporters seemed in sync with Shetler's reasoning. As now proposed, the county ordinance, set for a vote Tuesday, would outlaw lighting up in virtually every public building and workplace - over-21 establishments included - on Jan. 2, 2009.
Bagbey and co-sponsor Councilwoman Angela Koehler Walden, R-5th Ward, were optimistic that what Walden called "a first-step ordinance" will pass the City Council a week from today, when it is expected to be reported out of Bagbey's Public Works Committee for a same-day vote by the full council.
A city measure whose stringency catches up to the county law was in Walden's mind, too.
"You're going to see additional ordinances coming down the pike," she said. "You may not see a total smoking ban by a certain date (in a law that could be passed this month), but that doesn't mean we won't keep working to see that that happens."
Bagbey agreed. "This won't be the end of city legislation on smoking," he said. "It will be back, I'm sure. Maybe not by this particular councilman. I may get defeated. But somebody will carry the mantle."
At-large Democrat Keith Jarboe, who anticipated voting yes, also saw passage of a city smoking ordinance, albeit with fewer teeth than the version on file. "But one thing I look at: You need to start somewhere," Jarboe said. "What I've told people, in the next three to five years things will change, attitudes will change, we can do something (more) then." Both Walden and Bagbey conceded the city ordinance won't survive as introduced in the council May 8. It would ban smoking in virtually all public buildings where people under age 18 may go, and in all workplaces. It would allow smoking in strictly over-21 establishments, but not in those combined with "family rooms" and food-service areas where minors may dine. Strictly over-18 fraternal organizations are exempted in the version now on record.
One of the staunchest City Council opponents of the ordinance just before it was introduced in the council was at-large Democrat Curt John. He called it "overreaching" for government to regulate private business and industry where "there is a choice to go or not to go." But on Friday, John said, after informal talks with sponsors and other council members, "I'm sure everyone will come to an agreement that everybody can live with."
Though John said, "I still think this is something government shouldn't be in," he is pressing for amendments that allow designated, posted smoking areas in businesses and workplaces. That way, the law "doesn't jeopardize people in business nor take rights from people that they currently have."
John, a nonsmoker who said he once had a three-pack-per-day habit, said his point was not to advocate or defend smoking. "But it didn't take a law to convince me that wasn't a good thing to do," he said. Councilman Jeff Kniese, R-1st Ward, whose vote was seen a month ago as the key to whether a 5-4 council vote would pass or reject the ordinance, said informal talks had taken the probable form of the final ordinance to a point where "I think I endorse the concept."
He said he couldn't give a "definite yes or no answer" until he sees the final draft. Since restaurants in his far-East Side ward are just across the street from restaurants located outside the city limits, "my goal is an identical ordinance for both the city and county."
Still, all indications are Kniese will be forced to make the goal an eventual one. Commissioner Shetler said late Friday only over-21 bars and nightclubs are notable exceptions to a smoking ban effective next Jan. 1, and that bars and nightclubs will be forced to go smokeless at the beginning of 2009.
The only "somewhat gray area," Shetler said, is fraternal organizations, currently proposed to be exempt except for family rooms. The other two members of the all-Republican county body, Cheryl Musgrave and Bill Nix, both expressed strong support Friday for a comprehensive smoking ban. "All of us want identical ordinances," Musgrave said, "but I'm not for identical bad ordinances ... If the City Council wants to do something that compromises our health, I'm not going there."
Nix said, "I travel quite a bit. I don't know of one community that's regretted doing this. It's the right thing to do."
In addition to smoking-ordinance support on the nine-member City Council from Bagbey and Walden, Democrat Jarboe indicated Friday he will vote yes. In an April interview, at-large Republican Joe Kiefer said he would support the measure. With support from John and Kniese, which now seems likely, the amended ordinance will pass. Steve Melcher, D-3rd Ward, is believed to be a likely "no" vote, but he said last week he won't decide until he sees the final draft. Neither Kiefer nor Council Democrats Constance "Connie" Robinson of the 4th Ward and B.J. Watts of the 6th could be reached for comment. In interviews earlier this spring, Robinson and Watts said they opposed the ordinance.