Committee passes bowling smoke ban
BOISE – Second-grader Allie Hill took the podium Tuesday to share what she learned in health class about the tobacco smoke lawmakers may ban from bowling alleys.
“Every smoker can also hurt or kill many people who don’t smoke,” said Hill, a student at Pepper Ridge Elementary School in Boise. “You don’t want to kill a kid, do you?”
She showed legislators a hand-drawn chart depicting hazards of smoking, such as a smoker who can’t run, someone throwing away money and a man who can’t get a date because he lights up. Smoking fouls her bowling experience, she said, urging lawmakers to pass the anti-smoking legislation.
Her testimony helped sway a House committee to unanimously approve HB 121 to prohibit smoking in Idaho’s bowling alleys, a move that failed in past years. Hill’s remarks even affected Rep. Eric Anderson, R-Priest River, a smoker and former ban opponent.
“I think little Allie’s testimony was pretty compelling,” Anderson said, calling it his “first step to therapy.”
The bill now moves to the full House. To become law, it would have to pass there and in the Senate and receive the governor’s signature.
The sponsors of 2004 legislation that outlawed smoking in most of Idaho’s public places excluded bowling alleys and bars to ease the bill’s passage. Rep. Bob Ring, R-Caldwell, a retired doctor, has tried unsuccessfully to lift the exemption in ensuing years. Last year, his bill forcing alley owners to build smoking rooms failed on the House floor 49-18.
Ring said second-hand smoke is a “known health hazard” and “health and safety trump property rights.” Some bowling alleys want to go smoke-free but are reluctant on their own, he said.
“Sometimes I think people are just looking for a little help,” Anderson said.
Boise bowling center operator Mona Lindeen, president of the Idaho State Bowling Proprietors Association, said some alley owners have already voluntarily snuffed smoking, and the rest are ready to follow suit.
“This bill, we’re all standing behind,” Lindeen said.
Smoke-free alleys have seen a small decrease in beer sales but an increase in soda sales, which are more profitable, Ring said.
Russ Newcomb, lobbyist for the Idaho Medical Association, said banning smoking in restaurants did not hurt them, as some people had suggested.
“There is one thing that we all involuntarily share and that is the air we breathe,” he said. “That makes this a public health issue.”
Twenty people wearing neon green “Bowlers for Clean Air” stickers crowded the committee meeting to promote smoke-free lanes. Boise resident Barbara Vargason collected more than 400 signatures from bowlers supporting the legislation.
Her husband, Ken Vargason, said he coaches a children’s bowling team, but some parents only allow their kids to practice on Saturday mornings, when smoking is not allowed.
“Even Boise State wouldn’t be great if they could only play on the weekends,” he said.
Mike Brown, a member of the Twin Falls High School bowling team and the Magic Valley Tobacco-Free Coalition, said being forced to play his sport in smoky alleys makes him smell and feel bad.
“Having to bowl in a smoke-filled room, it sucks,” he said.