Smoking ban bill is sprung from committee in Legislature

Things are a little tense in the state capitol in Juneau over a public health bill being held up within the Rules Committee of the state House, chaired by Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, R-Anch.

Senate Bill 63 was set to sprung free Tuesday, April 10, from LeDoux’s committee after she came under heavy criticism for blocking the bill.

The bill passed the state Senate last year and proposes to expand the ban on smoking to work places. The bill has already passed through the Senate and was referred to the House Rules committee on Jan. 26, where it has been sitting for over a month.

There are 21 cosponsors in the 40-member House, enough to pass the bill if it weren’t being held by LeDoux in her committee.

LeDoux was asked questions the bill in a House Majority press conference on Feb. 20. She said nothing was set in terms of scheduling a vote and she was “open to negotiations,” on the bill.

When asked if there was something about the bill that concerned her, LeDoux said she felt the ban was “cramming (something) down the throats” of municipalities who could oppose it.

Sen. Peter Micciche, prime sponsor of SB 53, is not willing to have negotiations.

“We’re not negotiating. We’re not going to trade,” for another bill, Micciche said. “The office of Senator Peter Micciche is not going to negotiate a trade to get the bill to the floor.”

“The bill needs to go to the floor because it’s good legislation,” he added.

The bill was introduced in February 2017. Micciche said Alaskans have a right to health. While the ban would protect that right, it would also respect the right of others who do smoke.

“The clear case is not to interrupt the right of individuals who choose to smoke but to protect the rights of Alaskan employees who are essentially forced to smoke at gunpoint because of that lack of protection,” in the workplace, Micciche said.

The bill “simply asks smokers to ‘take it outside,” Micciche said In his sponsor statement.

Terrence Robbins, from Ketchikan, lost several family members to health-related complications due to smoking. He has been advocating for the smoking ban for years, even back when the bill was formerly introduced as SB 1 in 2015.

“If you pass this, it’ll save lives,” Robbins said in a hearing on SB 63. “No doubt about it.”

According to 2016 tobacco facts released by the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, approximately 20 percent of Alaska adults are smokers.

Robbins went to the Ketchikan City Council to support implementing a local smoke-free bill, but he was unsuccessful while facing opposition from the Alaska Cabaret, Hotel, Restaurant and Retailers Association.

CHARR does not support SB 63. Pete Hanson, its president and CEO, says that businesses have already gone in the non-smoking direction on their own.

“A huge majority of hospitality businesses are already non-smoking and most have gone non-smoking on their own,” Hanson said. “The remaining businesses that do allow smoking—they’re going to get there at some point.”

Micciche says that opposition to the bill has been reduced over the last few years and those who remain are typically vape shop supporters. Despite LeDoux’s concern about municipalities, Micciche’s office has not received letters of opposition from any of them.

SB 63 does include amendments that prohibit smoking in enclosed areas in public places, such as entertainment venues and retail stores, or areas outside within 10 feet of bar and restaurant entrances. It also contains language about the types of buildings and public places that an individual cannot smoke in or near, as well as categorization of vapor products and e-cigarettes.

Alex McDonald is the owner of Ice Fog Vapor in Fairbanks and he quit smoking four years ago. The United Kingdom and New Zealand have legalized e-cigarettes and vaping, and this is the direction that Alaska should go, he says.

“If other countries are having this type of success, why would we pass a bill that’s contrary to their results?” McDonald said.

Jennifer Fisher, who lives in North Pole, switched from tobacco to vapor products. She had been using tobacco since she was 9 years old.

“I’ve done everything I could to try to quit and I wasn’t able to until I started vaping,” Fisher said.

Her daughter had breathing problems when she was four or five years old due to Fisher’s ex-husband smoking cigarettes, though not indoors. Once he started vaping, Fisher said, her daughter stopped needing treatments or an inhaler.

The bill is intended to have “the lightest footprint possible,” Micciche says. Existing vapor businesses would be grandfathered in and allowed to operate while the new law would apply to future cases.

“We believe that that was a fair thing for us to conceive that we don’t want to impact existing businesses that sell vape products,” Micciche said.

Although vape products are likely better than tobacco, there is still little known about them, Micciche says. In the future, employees “should be protected from that as well.”

Other legislators have expressed frustration over the delay in action. On Feb. 22, during the House Minority press conference, Rep. Chris Birch said that the legislation was experiencing a leadership crisis and that bills, such as SB 63, were still sitting in the Rules Committee.

“We have an obstructionist leadership in the House that is really inhibiting change and progress,” he said, a reference to LeDoux in her position as chairman of the Rules Committee.

There are currently 30 sponsors on SB 63, including 21 in the 40-member House, which Micciche says is enough to pass the bill. The sponsors are a bipartisan mix including Majority and Minority members. There are nine cosponsors in the 20-member Senate, again including Majority and Minority.

“We know that we’re in the 36, 37 or 38-vote range in the House,”, Micciche said. “That bill should be on the floor,” for final action.

Mariah DeJesus-Remaklus is an Anchorage writer and is a journalism student at University of Alaska Anchorage