By WisPolitics Staff
Both houses of the Legislature signed off on a statewide smoking ban Wednesday that would force Wisconsin’s bars, hotels and other public workplaces to go smoke free in July 2010.
The state Senate approved the ban Tuesday afternoon on a 25-8 vote after turning back more than a dozen amendments seeking to carve out exemptions for nursing homes, private clubs and hotels.
The Assembly then voted 61-38 to approve the bill after rejecting similar attempts to change the bill, clearing the way for it to go to Gov. Jim Doyle’s desk.
The Dem governor is expected to sign it.
The legislation was hammered out by representatives from the Wisconsin Tavern League and anti-smoking forces last week. The deal pushed off implementation until 2010, tweaked fines, pre-empted local governments from approving more restrictive measures and grandfathered in certain cigar bars.
Backers turned back amendment after amendment in hopes of keeping the support of both sides. But that hung in the balance briefly in the Senate.
Sen. Jim Sullivan, D-Wauwatosa, initially supported an amendment that would allow hotel owners to exempt up to 15 percent of their rooms from the ban. Sullivan voted against motions to table the amendment and reject it. In both cases, the motions were decided on 17-16 votes.
But after Dems broke to meet in caucus for an hour, Sullivan voted against a third motion to adopt the measure, which went down 17-16.
While Dems caucused, Scott Stenger, the lobbyist for the Tavern League of Wisconsin, said the group would withdraw its support for the compromise ban hammered out between bar owners and anti-smoking forces last week if any amendments were approved.
Sullivan said after the votes that he switched his vote because he did not want to see the deal on the ban blow up.
Republicans complained through much of the debate in both houses that the ban would kill mom-and-pop taverns and infringe upon business owners’ rights to run their establishments as they choose. The amendments they proposed included some that would try to expand the ban to the state’s Native American casinos, which were shot down as ban backers insisted they were unconstitutional because the tribes are sovereign nations.
“Nobody is compelled as an employee or a customer to go into a business where this legal activity is taking place,” said GOP Rep. Dan Knodl, who has owned a tavern for 24 years. “We’re all responsible individually for protecting our health, making good or bad decisions.”
But supporters countered the ban would provide a healthy workplace for all state employees by eliminating their exposure while on the job to second hand smoke.
“People have come together to honor the principle that you should never have to choose between your job and your health,” said Dem Rep. Jon Richards, one of the ban’s sponsors.
