A bill to ban smoking in Colorado’s 44 casinos is hanging by a thread after the Senate by an 18-17 margin added a poison-pill amendment last week.
It’s a short-sighted maneuver. The Senate should strip the amendment and return the measure to its original form when it comes up for final reading in the chamber on Monday.
The amendment prevents a ban on casino smoking as long as smoking is allowed at cigar bars and at the Denver International Airport smoking lounge. That’s absurd.
In its original form, the bill was meant to repeal the casino exemption in the Colorado Clean Air Act, which took effect last July 1.
The poison pill’s author, Sen. Bob Hagedorn, D-Aurora, claimed he made the change because he opposes all exemptions and hoped it would pressure lawmakers to get rid of them. Hagedorn, who chairs the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, should know more about prevention and the runaway costs of health care to Colorado than just about anyone at the Capitol.
It’s better to protect the health of the state’s 8,000 casino workers than to play politics.
DIA’s smoking lounge is an enclosed area and does not have employees trapped in a smoke-filled environment for eight hours. And cigar bars are set up to cater to smokers. So Hagedorn’s claims ring hollow.
The Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act was passed last year to protect nonsmokers from involuntary exposure to the ill effects of secondhand smoke. Numerous studies have underscored the dangers. Last year, the nation’s surgeon general, Richard H. Carmona, said there is “no risk-free level of secondhand smoke.”
The statewide ban implemented last year covers restaurants, bars and most public indoor places except casinos, cigar bars, DIA’s smoking lounge and some businesses with three or fewer employees.
It was meant to replace the patchwork of local smoking bans that had grown up around the state, creating an uneven playing field for businesses.
It also was meant to avoid a ballot measure in which, polls showed, the vast majority of voters would likely have approved a blanket ban.
Hagedorn and lawmakers who voted with him ought to keep that in mind.
The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Ken Gordon, is trying to gather the necessary support to return the bill to its original form. We urge lawmakers to stick to the legislation that repeals last year’s casino exemption.
