By THOMAS B. LANGHORNE, Evansville Courier & Press staff writer
langhornet@courierpress.com
Vanderburgh County has passed a smoking ban that begins to go into effect Jan. 2, 2007.
The ban was approved unanimously Tuesday by County Commissioners Cheryl Musgrave, Tom Shetler Jr. and Bill Nix.
It makes some temporary exemptions, but effective Jan. 2, 2009, smoking will be banned in almost every area of any public place.
Though the commissioners had said they wanted the most comprehensive smoking ban possible as soon as possible, the measure they ended up passing was the product of extensive negotiations with members of the Evansville City Council.
Smoking ban proponents on both governing bodies were trying to craft ordinances as similar as possible to avoid legal conflicts while simultaneously addressing the concerns of ban opponents.
Musgrave, president of the County Commissioners, said the ban should be considered effective throughout Vanderburgh County - including inside the city limits - until the City Council passes its own ban. That body is set to vote on its ordinance Monday.
"The concessions that we made are about the timing, not the substance, of the (smoking) ban," Musgrave said. "I'm still not convinced (the City Council) will pass this; they may add more concessions."
The County Commissioners' smoking ban does the following:
- Eliminates smoking in all restaurants and public places where people under 18 gather, such as a tavern's family room, as of Jan. 2, 2007. That includes fraternal and private organizations.
- Exempts bars and nightclubs until Jan. 2, 2009.
- Delays the ban for public places in which both alcohol and food are served if those establishments separate their bar areas from eating areas with a solid floor-to-ceiling wall with a door up to 60 inches wide. The exemption for bar areas in such establishment begins Jan. 2, 2007, and ends Jan. 2, 2009.
- Allows hotels and motels to set aside up to 40 percent of their rooms for smoking in 2007. In 2008, the figure goes down to 30 percent and down again to 20 percent in 2009.
"Hotels and motels can always (decline to set aside any of their rooms for smoking)," Musgrave said.
- Exempts garages that have overhead doors and exhaust removal systems already in place. This exemption does not expire.
After the County Commissioners' meeting, Shetler told reporters that city and county officials will work together in the next two years to make their smoking bans - assuming the City Council passes one - more similar.
Shetler said compromises were necessary.
"We were trying to appease the private individuals as much as we possibly could to give them time to put in pavilions, private areas, patios and things that they can accommodate the smoking group that they do have," he said. "... At the same time, we wanted to adjust the public, the smoking public particularly, to a new set of rules, feeling as if we tried to do something overnight or very quickly, that it could meet a lot of resistance."
Shetler said the commissioners also were trying to give businesses that might struggle financially with the smoking ban time to adjust to it.
The city's proposed smoking ban is similar to the county's, though it has no timetable for a ban in bars and nightclubs.
Councilman Steve Bagbey, that body's leading smoking ban proponent, said he thinks there are enough votes to pass the city's ban.
"We need to inform the community that the long-term goal is to make the city and the county totally smoke-free, and 2009 is a reasonable phase-in," Bagbey said.
The power to compel businesses to abide by a smoking ban comes from the same place local government gets the power to make businesses do anything that protects public health, County Attorney Ted Ziemer Jr. said.
"We have food regulations that affect businesses," Ziemer said. "You've got to have a clean kitchen, for example. There are certain minimum requirements of cleanliness and hygiene that protect public health."
State statutes are silent on the issue of smoking in private businesses and workplaces, Ziemer said, so under home rule any political subdivision of the state is entitled to enact related legislation that it believes protects public health.
Several physicians and other medical personnel spoke at public hearings last month about what they characterized as the dangers to public health - especially to children - posed by secondhand smoke.
Ziemer said the question of who would enforce such a ban in the county is not as complicated as many have said. He named several public agencies - including the Vanderburgh County Sheriff's Department and the building commissioner's office - are empowered to enforce a ban.
Shetler said the commissioners would "feel more comfortable" with the Health Department taking the lead enforcement position.