EDITORIAL – Smoking is butted out

After being tabled for more than a year, scraping through the Pennsylvania House of… After being tabled for more than a year, scraping through the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and failing to make it through the state Senate on its first try, a ban on smoking in indoor public places has finally been passed by the Pennsylvania state legislature. Gov. Ed Rendell has already pledged to sign the bill into law, and it is set to make sweeping changes across the state.

But for all its significance, the smoking ban doesn’t really do a whole lot. There are numerous exceptions named in the bill, such as bars where food sales account for less than 20 percent of revenue, up to 50 percent of casino floors – except in Philadelphia, where smoking is already banned more comprehensively – and designated outdoor smoking areas, among others.

In many ways, it seems like the state legislature is simply trying to placate both sides of the debate by employing a bill that does little to change the existing order except in a few outstanding cases. Most bars won’t be affected by the new rules, but the increasingly scarce smoking sections in restaurants are now set to disappear. The small number of workplaces that don’t have indoor smoking bans in place already might be in for a shakeup, but the clear majority, where smoking is already banned inside, won’t feel a thing.

The bill is just as much a statement of purpose as it is an actual attempt to curb public smoking. Of course it will have some legal weight once signed into law, but it also places Pennsylvania firmly among the roughly 35 other states that have a legal smoking ban. Perhaps we’re simply jumping on the bandwagon, even if the bandwagon happens to be good for public health.

And as good as the bill is for people who don’t want to be bothered by tobacco smoke, it’s equally as bad for the people who choose to enjoy it. There are some definite civil liberties issues at work in the underpinnings of this bill, but for the most part the exceptions seem to cover them neatly. In the few places where they don’t, such as restaurants that may have previously had smoking sections, there are bound to be inconveniences and some grumpy smokers.

There’s also issues with banning smoking in the interest of public well-being while at the same time allowing infinitely more grievous affronts to public heath continue unabated or with only minimal oversight. One could certainly argue that choking down a blast of hot exhaust fumes from a passing truck or bus is just as bad for you as second-hand smoke, and banning the one over the other isn’t exactly fair.

For the most part, the smoking ban is a step forward for Pennsylvania. Despite its shortcomings, the ban shows a marked effort at improving the quality of living for the majority of people in the state, as well as placing Pennsylvania among other progressive states and countries that have already taken similar measures. It would certainly be nice if the state continued to pass more stringent measures for improving air quality and concerned itself more with public health, but the smoking ban as it stands now is certainly a move in the right direction.