Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 19, 1993 TAG: 9302190241
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BONNIE V. WINSTON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
BATHROOM SMOKING BAN ADVANCES
Smokers who run to a public bathroom to satisfy the nicotine urge would lose that sanctuary under a bill advanced Thursday by the Senate Education and Health Committee.Largely gutted earlier in the House of Delegates, Del. Bernard Cohen's bill to strengthen Virginia's controls on public puffing was beefed up by the committee and sent to the Senate floor.
Amendments by the panel added public bathrooms and grocery stores of 15,000 square feet or larger to the list of places where smoking would be prohibited. The law already forbids smoking in checkout and service lines at large grocery stores, among other places.
Cohen, D-Alexandria, and several anti-smoking advocates who watched Thursday's debate were bolstered.
"Many women use public restrooms to nurse or change their babies," health advocate Lynn Cooper said following the vote. She and others noted the number of cancer-causing agents that federal research has identified in cigarette smoke.
"Restrooms are truly necessary rooms. This will protect them from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke," Cooper said.
Tobacco industry lobbyist Anthony F. Troy argued that the prohibitions were unnecessary. Shoppers haven't complained about cigarette smoke at grocery stores, he said.
And Troy accused Cohen's clean-air supporters of "constantly moving the target." He said the Tobacco Institute, the trade group for which he lobbies, was willing to compromise, but provisions of the bill were in constant flux.
Also at the assembly Thursday:
The Senate education panel endorsed a bill sponsored by Del. Karen Darner, D-Arlington, to provide free textbooks to all public school students in the state starting July 1, 1994.
Sen. Joseph Benedetti, R-Richmond, in a floor speech, demanded an apology from legislative Democrats for a letter last week accusing three Republican delegates of being linked with the Ku Klux Klan.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1993