The bill also “rolled” preemption forward, stating that any local ordinance enacted before January 1, 2006, would not be deemed invalid because of inconsistency with state law. After January 1, 2006, Bell’s substitute would have only required local ordinances to prohibit smoking in designated no-smoking areas of restaurants. Otherwise, localities were preempted from exceeding the law as it would have existed after January 1, 2006. The substitute was adopted and SB 648 passed out of the Senate by a vote of 28-18 with one abstaining, but was ultimately killed in the House General Laws Committee. The 2007 session opened with four bills being introduced on smoking restrictions. Sen. Brandon Bell introduced a coalition-supported bill that mirrored his 2006 effort. Additionally, Del. Vince Callahan and Del. Harvey Morgan also introduced smoking restriction bills . Del. Glenn Oder and Del. Algie Howell also introduced identical bills, HB 2689 and HB 2255 respectively. The bills were all virtually identical, expanding the VICAA to prohibit smoking in most public places where the public was invited during the normal course of business, including restaurants, common areas of apartment buildings, indoor shopping malls.In addition, the bills sought to remove the explicitly preemptive language from existing law,mobile racking systems with the bills stating that the new law could not be construed to permit smoking where prohibited by any duly enacted local ordinance, seemingly allowing localities to exceed statewide provisions. VFHF was most supportive of Bell’s bill, but the coalition also supported the Callahan, Morgan, Oder, and Howell bills because they would raise the profile of Bell’s bill and increase its chance of success.
Approximately a week after the three bills were introduced, VFHF held a well-attended news conference to release a Mason-Dixon poll that they had commissioned that showed that 71% of those polled supported smoking restrictions such as those found in the Bell bill,and received wide coverage in the media. Their press release also included statements by legislators who were supporting the VFHF push for clean indoor air. Bell noted that “momentum is building, which is evident in the sheer number of bills introduced in 2007.”Morgan stressed the importance of the U.S. Surgeon General’s 2006 report, stating “[t]he science is clear. Secondhand smoke is not an annoyance. It is a serious health hazard responsible for death and disease, and there is no safe level of exposure.”Callahan pointed to the tax burden, noting that “[e]very household in Virginia is paying $576 in taxes from smoking-caused government expenditures.”Additionally, VFHF provided the information directly to legislators and conducted grassroots mobilization around the polling.Bell’s bill was strongly opposed by tobacco industry-aligned groups, including the Virginia Hospitality and Travel Association and the Virginia Retail Merchants’ Association. These groups argued before the various assembly committees that they supported free-market positions on smoking prohibitions, and opposed any “blanket bans” such as Bell’s proposal. However, SB 1161 found support from the local Virginia Beach Restaurant Association , a 200-member group that distanced itself from the position of other restaurant and hospitality associations in the state that traditionally opposed any broad prohibitions on smoking in restaurants and bars. VBRA became involved in the measure after Matt Falvey, a former president of the VBRA and a member of VHTA, convinced the VHTA to adopt a neutral stance on tobacco control for one year, in 2004.After VHTA returned to active opposition to tobacco control in 2005, Falvey and other VHTA members resigned and took their concerns to the VBRA.The VBRA embraced the tobacco control position and approached Sen. Bell to support SB 1161.Bell put the VBRA members in touch with the VFHF and the VBRA became members of the VFHF coalition in 2007.
Particularly important to Falvey and other VBRA members was a sense that smoking restrictions were inevitably going to affect restaurants in the future, and rather than opposing them they should get “out in front” of the issue.Falvey was also concerned about protecting the health of his employees, comparing the smoking restrictions in restaurants to widely accepted regulations protecting patrons from food-borne illnesses.Finally, Falvey was frustrated that the VHTA was fighting against smoking restrictions alongside the tobacco industry, feeling that restaurateurs should not be fighting battles for the tobacco industry.The tobacco industry response to SB 1161 and its related bills was embodied in a bill introduced by Del. Morgan Griffith .This bill was a “red light, green light” bill promoted by the tobacco industry in other states that gave the power to restaurants to decide their own smoking policy by simply posting a sign telling what their policy was. The bill replaced the language requiring smoking sections in restaurants with 50 or more seats from the existing VICAA and inserted language that read “Any restaurant may allow smoking if signs stating ‘Smoking Permitted’ conspicuous to ordinary public view are placed at each public entrance.” Griffith claimed that his bill was not a workers’ health bill, stating to the press, “[t]his may not be perfect for those people who would like to protect workers, but it is better than any bill that has made it to the [House] floor.”Public health groups opposed the Griffith bill, understanding that a “red light, green light” bill was actually a step backwards that would do nothing to discourage smoking or protect the health of workers.Despite the past willingness of public health advocates to make serious compromises on substance to get some sort of legislation passed, there was consensus that Griffith’s bill was worse than the existing law.It also maintained statewide preemption of local ordinances. Despite a pledge to the public in 2005 and 2006 to refrain from lobbying on clean indoor air legislation, Philip Morris jumped into the fray in 2007 with a full lobbying effort in support of Griffith’s bill. 223 PM claimed that that the measure was enough of a restriction on property rights that they were justified in changing their lobbying stance.
Bell’s bill was assigned to the House General Laws Subcommittee, which was historically very hostile to tobacco control legislation and had killed Bell’s tobacco control legislation the previous session . Bell came under significant pressure from the subcommittee after they stalled his legislation and asked him to meet with Griffith to try to achieve a compromise in early February. Bell doubted whether he could find any common ground with Griffith and declined to compromise with Griffith, saying that he would not support any bill that public health advocates would not support. In addition, Griffith threatened to withdraw his bill if it any amendments were offered to prohibit smoking in all restaurants.Ultimately, Bell’s bill was killed in the House General Laws subcommittee. The House and Senate both passed Griffith’s measure on March 4, 2007. Bell and health advocates declined to try and change the bill in the Assembly due to Griffith’s threats to strike the bill if any changes were made; therefore, attention turned to the Governor for a possible amendment. Because all the coalition-supported bills had been either killed by or held in hostile legislative committees,shelving manufacturers using Griffith’s measure as a vehicle to enact smoking restrictions in bars and restaurants would be an end-run around the hostile committees and require any amended bill to go to the full House for an up-or-down vote. While the House committees would assuredly kill any strong measure, VFHF had tallied votes in the House and Senate and believed they had enough to pass a strong bill if they could get it out of committee.VFHF also secured an agreement with Gov. Kaine through trusted political allies, including Sen. Bell, that Kaine would amend the bill to restrict smoking in all restaurants and bars.If the legislature rejected these amendments, VFHF had commitments from the Senate to kill the measure. However, if a contingency arose where the bill passed out of the legislature retaining the red light/green light provisions, Kaine agreed to veto the bill.Therefore, VFHF was in a strong position to either enact strong legislation or kill weak legislation and felt “comfortable allowing it to come out [of the Assembly] as it stands, even though the bill itself is problematic,” according to Cathleen Grzesiek, director of VFHF.VFHF and other public health advocates began to heavily lobby the Governor for changes in Griffith’s HB 2422, such as removal of the “red light, green light” provision, that they could support.Terry Hargrove, the director of community relations for the American Lung Association, said to the press after the bill went to Kaine that his group had organized a letterwriting and phone campaign to the Governor’s offices urging him to positively amend the legislation.2008 brought changes to the balance of power in the Virginia General Assembly. Republicans had controlled the state Senate since 1999, but in 2007 Democrats regained control of the Senate. Because of this, VFHF sought a new patron in the Senate from the majority party and identified Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple . Whipple was the chair of the state’s Democratic caucus and passionate about health issues, including tobacco control.Many bills were introduced concerning smoking in both houses, building off of the momentum for enacting stronger clean indoor air laws that had started in 2007 .Whipple introduced SB 298 using language developed working with VFHF.
Whipple was the chair of the state’s Democratic caucus, and also passionate about health issues including tobacco control.VFHF had other legislators introduce bills with identical language, including HB 500 by Del. Phillip Hamilton , who was the chair of the House Health Welfare and Institutions Committee and vice-chair of the House Appropriations Committee, which gave him significant power and influence in the House.Two other bills introduced were also identical to the language of SB 298 as introduced. Del. Algie Howell, Jr. and Del. Harvey Morgan introduced HB 572 and HB 821 respectively.Morgan had carried a strong bill the year before, and continued to be a strong ally of VFHF. All of these bills completely prohibited smoking in public spaces like public buildings, healthcare facilities, retail stores, and also in restaurants and bars. They provided partial coverage for workplaces, prohibiting smoking in any workplace entered into by the public during the normal course of business. These bills also expressly repealed preemption to allow localities to enact ordinances that exceeded any part of their provisions. Three other bills, SB 202 . HB 288 and HB 1341 were introduced with a more limited purpose . These three bills redefined “restaurants” to avoid the situation in 2007 that had lead the defeat of the amended HB 2422 and partially repealed preemption by specifically allowing local ordinances to “contain provisions or standards related to smoking in restaurants that exceed those established in this chapter.” VFHF did not develop or ask legislators to introduce these bills; they were developed by the introducing legislators with input from the Governor’s office and occasional input from VFHF.After the defeats of SB 1161 and the amended HB 2422 in 2007, Gov. Kaine proposed a statewide restriction of restaurant smoking in early 2008 that was essentially the same as the amendments he had provided the year earlier. Kaine announced his support for smoke free restaurants on January 7, 2008, at a VBRA-organized press conference at Matt Falvey’s restaurant Hot Tuna. This bill was carried for the governor by Sen. Ralph Northam as SB 501. The bill redefined “restaurants” to exclude “mobile points of service” and made all restaurants and bars 100% smoke-free . Gov. Kaine said that his reasons for the proposal were based on scientific evidence on the health effects of secondhand smoke, which was “clear and convincing … Virginia must act to protect workers and consumers in restaurants.”Also, after offering the strong amendments for HB 2422, supporting SB 501 was a logical extension of his 2007 political stance.VFHF adopted a policy of supporting all these bills because they all made restaurants and bars 100% smoke free, even though some were not comprehensive.However, most of VFHF’s resources went to support the Whipple bills and those similar to it, with the main message being that all workers should be protected from secondhand smoke. Because all clean indoor air bills were considered together in the legislative hearings, VFHF was unable to testify about the differences between the individual bills, and instead had to testify about all of them together by focusing on the broader health issues regarding secondhand smoke.