State May Ban Smoking In Bars, Restaurants Court Upholds Ruling Outlawing Smoking In Workplace
Washington’s virtual ban on smoking in the workplace was upheld by a judge Monday and may soon be expanded to bars and restaurants.
“It’s a big win for the workers and I hope it is another nail in the coffin of Joe Camel,” cheered Mark Brown, director of the state Department of Labor and Industries, which fought the tobacco industry to implement the nation’s first workplace smoking ban in November 1994.
The industry will appeal, said Michael York, an attorney for Phillip Morris tobacco company, in a telephone interview from New York City. He called it “a political decision” and said the agency rule “has nothing to do with science.”
He agreed with Brown that other states are watching the case.
“This really was a no-brainer,” Brown said of the regulation that bars smoking in all offices. The only exceptions are for smoke-rooms that are vented outside so that no secondhand smoke drifts into the workplace.
Factories are exempt, but The Boeing Co. and more than half the state’s assembly plants have been smoke-free for years, he said.
Other states likely will be encouraged by the Washington legal ruling and adopt their own regulations, said Brown and Teresa Purcell, a spokeswoman for the American Lung Association. Maryland adopted a similar ban a few months after Washington.
Brown said he’ll meet with Gov. Mike Lowry and state Health Secretary Bruce Miyahara to discuss expanding the regulation to bars and restaurants. The state also may sue the tobacco industry to help pay the $1 billion annual cost of workers’ compensation - at least part of which he considers tobacco-related.
“These are issues that had been on hold while we focused on legal challenges to defend what we have,” Brown said in an interview. “Now we will dust those issues off. We feel all workers are entitled to the same protections.”
In a lengthy oral ruling from the bench, Thurston County Superior Court Judge Richard Strophy said the state agency was within its legal rights in using workplace health and safety laws to require that government and private offices be smoke-free.
The two sides will debate concerns about secondhand tobacco smoke “at least until there are two moons in the sky,” Strophy said.
But he said the state had plenty of scientific evidence in hand, including studies by the U.S. surgeon general’s office and the Environmental Protection Agency, when it decided secondhand smoke posed a big risk to workers.
A 1992 EPA study linked second-hand smoking to 3,000 cancer deaths a year. In Washington state, a much smaller number was offered: six.
The judge conceded the industry’s point that many of the studies focus on the effects of smoking on a non-smoker living with a smoker. But he said the workplace probably involves a heavier concentration of smoke, from more smokers, than a private home.
People spend as many of their waking hours at work as at home, and might find it harder to get away from smoke in the workplace, Strophy said.
The ban is “not without a reasonable basis and a reasonable rationale,” the judge said in dismissing the challenge brought by the industry and three in-state businesses required to comply with the ban.
Banning smoking is cheaper for businesses than monitoring office air quality to ensure a minimum standard is met each day, he said.
Industry lawyer Timothy Butler told reporters he was disappointed with the ruling, but declined further comment.
York said the decision to appeal had already been made.
“Neither science nor law support this decision,” he said.
In Maryland, the industry did not appeal a ruling that went against it.
The industry submitted more than 30,000 pages of documents to buttress their point of view - the largest record ever put together in Washington for a challenge of an agency rule, Strophy said.
The state has about 250,000 office-type workplaces and roughly half permitted smoking when the rule went into effect, Brown said. Enforcement is largely a matter of responding to citizen complaints, about 200 so far, he said.
“There is no Smoke Police force - we haven’t added a single employee in our agency,” he said. “A warning letter usually does the job.”
A fine can range from $50 to $200, depending on the number of employees at an office. Repeat offenses can get costlier.
“The worst-case scenario is $3 trillion,” Brown quipped.
He said the governor is “very interested in breaking new ground” by suing tobacco companies for costs the state asserts it can attribute to smoking.
xxxx What’s next Meeting with governor and health officials about expanding ban. Possible lawsuits against tobacco companies to recover workmen’s compensation costs associated with smoking.