Governor promises quick signature on smoking ban

Virginia, which 400 years ago helped found a nation on the leafy cash crop of tobacco, yesterday took a significant step toward smoke-free restaurants and bars.

Lawmakers passed and sent to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine a measure that restricts smoking in restaurants to ones with rooms that are ventilated separately and to private clubs.

Kaine, who in 2006 had issued an executive order banning smoking in state government buildings, said he will sign the legislation.

"I think it will be signed quite swiftly -- in the quickest-drying ink I can find," Kaine said outside his office.

The Democratic-controlled state Senate voted 27-13 to pass Senate Bill 1105. The tally in the Republican-controlled House of Delegates was 60-39.

An identical piece of legislation, House Bill 1703, cleared a Senate committee yesterday and also is on track for approval.

Kaine lauded the legislature's bipartisan support for the bills, and the measures' sponsors -- Sen. Ralph S. Northam, D-Norfolk, and Del. John A. Cosgrove, R-Chesapeake.

"It's a very significant accomplishment."

Twenty-three other states and Puerto Rico have passed bans on smoking indoors at bars and restaurants.

"Historically it is a step, but one in which Virginia is in accord with a lot of other states," Kaine said. "We're never going to solve the nation's health-care challenges if we don't start off tackling the nation's health challenges."

Information released by Kaine's office suggested that Virginia's new ban would be the toughest among the nation's top five tobacco-producing states, which also include North Carolina, Kentucky, South Carolina and Tennessee. Among them, only Tennessee has a statewide ban, which exempts private clubs and any establishments that require proof of age to enter.

Over the years, legislative attempts to extinguish smoking in public have had little success in Virginia, headquarters of Philip Morris USA, the Henrico County-based tobacco giant.

"Every restaurant in Virginia already had the right to ban smoking on their own" and many did, said Bill Phelps, a Philip Morris USA spokesman.

Hilton Oliver of the Virginia Group to Alleviate Smoking in Public, or Virginia GASP, called it "a pretty good bill under the circumstances."

Speaker of the House William J. Howell, R-Stafford, had worked out the bill's details with Kaine.

Yesterday the House of Delegates passed the bill without debate. Thirty-two of the 53 Republicans, including House Majority Leader H. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, defied Howell and voted against the measure.

The legislation is "something whose time has come," Cosgrove said. "I voted against it last year. Even hard-core Republicans back home were telling me, 'We like what you're doing in Richmond, but you need to pass a smoking bill.'"

Del. Terry G. Kilgore, R-Scott, who had offered amendments to try to weaken the bill, said the public sentiment favors a smoking ban.

"One thing I have learned in politics is, don't get in front of a train," Kilgore said.

This year -- with all 100 members of the House up for re-election -- Howell sent signals that the Republican leadership might be willing to forge a compromise on the issue.

Howell met with Kaine, and along with Del. S. Chris Jones, R-Suffolk, and Northam and Cosgrove, began work on a compromise.

Dissident Republicans, led by Kilgore, attempted to filter the bill with amendments that would have allowed smoking when minors are not present and in areas separated by a door and without independent ventilation. But further negotiation convinced House leaders there was enough GOP support for the measure.

The governor has struggled with opposition in the House and with a deep national recession that has forced cuts to the state budget and tamped down many of his initiatives.

Yesterday, Kaine ranked the smoking ban with previous legislative successes such as last year's higher-education bond package; the expansion of pre-kindergarten programs; and reforms to the mental-health system following the Virginia Tech shootings.

More restrictive smoking bills that cleared the Senate earlier this year were killed in the House. Asked whether the restaurant ban could be the beginning of an expansion of anti-smoking initiatives, Kaine said momentum is building.

"I don't know," he said. "That's going to be another legislature and another governor wrestling with that."

Contact Jim Nolan at (804) 649-6061 or .

Staff writer Tyler Whitley and The Associated Press contributed to this report.