Stogie News: Analysis of Virginia Smoking Ban Legislation

On Friday we mentioned that the Virginia State Senate looked close to passing a state-wide smoking ban. What follows is a closer look at that bill.

The ominously-titled “Virginia Smoke Free Air Act” would repeal the also ominously-titled, but significantly less-restrictive, “Virginia Indoor Clean Air Act.” The Virginia Indoor Clean Air Act only requires restaurants over a certain size to provide a non-smoking section and forbids local governments from passing any ban that is more restrictive.

Currently, the Virginia Smoke Free Air Act has been referred out of the Senate’s Committee on Education and Health. (Curiously these bills never go to a committee on civil liberties or property rights.)

And while the bill purposefully make this clear, it will ban smoking in all bars by defining “bars,” along with almost everything else – including, at times, private clubs – as public places:

“Public place” means any enclosed area to which the public is invited or in which the public is permitted, including but not limited to, banks, bars, educational facilities, healthcare facilities, hotel and motel lobbies, laundromats, public transportation facilities, reception areas, retail food production and marketing establishments, retail services establishments, retail stores, shopping malls, sports arenas, theaters, and waiting rooms. “Public place” shall include a private club when being used for a function to which the general public is invited; however, a private residence is not a “public place” unless being used as a child care, adult day care, or healthcare facility.

In short, with the small exceptions of tobacco shops, tobacco factories, labeled “smoking” hotel rooms, and private residences (with caveats on that listed above), this constitutes a complete statewide ban on smoking. A more cynical person might be thankful that a ban on smoking in multi-unit houses wasn’t included, as is being considered in Belmont, California.

Yet enforcing such a draconian ban isn’t easy, and it would surely be expensive to have police officers go bar to bar checking for cigarette butts. But the anti-smoking zealots have “solved” this by forcing proprietors to enforce the ban. So after telling restaurant and bar proprietors that their establishments are “public places,” the bill then goes on to forcibly enlist them to enforce the law against their own customers:

Any proprietor of any establishment, building, or area that is subject to the smoking restrictions provided in this article who fails to comply with such restrictions shall be subject to a civil penalty of not more than $200 for the first offense and $500 for any subsequent offense.

Overall, the proposed Virginia smoking ban is just like every other smoking ban: a paternalistic infringement on individual liberty and property rights.

It surely makes a mockery of the motto on the state flag: “Thus Always to Tyrants.”

–Patrick S