Gray Wyatt made his Richmond restaurant, Perly’s, smoke-free in 1998 and never looked back. “I think when people sit down to eat, the last thing they want to deal with is tobacco smoke,“ Wyatt said yesterday. “It’s not a very good condiment.“ So, Perly’s Restaurant & Deli was a logical place for Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to kick off a countdown to Virginia’s upcoming ban on smoking in restaurants, which takes effect Dec. 1.

Media General News Service As of yesterday, patients, employees and visitors no longer are allowed to smoke on the property of the University of Virginia Medical Center. As part of the hospital’s effort to transition to a smoke-free environment, people no longer may smoke in front of the hospital’s entrance, outside the primary-care center, at the medical center’s outpatient clinics, in the parking garages and at the Elson Student Health Center.

Smokers still huddle outside the doors of more than half of America’s hospitals—and 65 percent of Virginia’s—a new study found. But the study, published this week in the medical journal Tobacco Control, says more hospitals are moving to having a completely smoke-free campus. In central Virginia, HCA’s Chippenham and Johnston-Willis campuses went tobacco-free—even banning smokeless tobacco—last year, said Karen Nelson, executive director for marketing.

She started smoking Marlboro cigarettes in 1955, the year Philip Morris relaunched the brand. Forty-five years later, Betty Bullock had a two-pack-a-day habit and a diagnosis of terminal lung cancer. Bullock was among the roughly four in 10 smokers who succeeded in getting a case against Henrico County-based Philip Morris USA into court and winning. Most lose on appeal, but Bullock’s case still has legs, though not as the $28 billion case it once was.

“Quitting smoking is easy,“ goes an old joke. “I’ve done it hundreds of times.“ So—perhaps—has President Obama, who recently congratulated Congress on passage of a tobacco regulation bill. Does Obama still smoke, despite campaign assurances he had quit? According to a news account the other day, “White House press secretary Robert Gibbs would not say . . . .“ You can take that as a probable yes. If Obama did not, Gibbs would have answered the question.

Philip Morris USA and other U.S. cigarette makers lost an appeal yesterday to a 2006 landmark ruling that found the nation’s top tobacco companies guilty of racketeering and fraud for deceiving the public about the dangers of smoking.

Patrick Henry’s Grill and Pub in East Richmond has a smoking area downstairs, but no smoking in the upstairs dining area. Owner Eric Warner recently prohibited smoking in the entire restaurant until after 9 p.m. With a new law going into effect in Virginia in December that puts more restrictions on, but does not entirely ban, smoking in restaurants, Warner said he’s likely to make his restaurant smoke-free, despite his concerns about how some customers might react.

Surprisingly, the debate about smoking has centered on government interference with private businesses rather than the toxic and carcinogenic nature of secondhand tobacco smoke and the inability of many to escape it. On most issues, I find myself in agreement with Bart Hinkle, but I disagree with his recent Op/Ed column, “On Smoking, Puritanism Triumphs Over Tolerance,“ and his assertion that “the sole parties who have a right at issue . . . are the proprietors.“

Altria/Philip Morris: “larger wave” of job cuts this month Altria Group Inc. said yesterday that it expects a wave of layoffs this month at its Richmond-area operations but declined to specify the number of employees affected. The parent company of cigarette maker Philip Morris USA said last fall that it was reducing staff as part of a corporate reorganization.

The Senate today is expected to send a House bill on smoking in restaurants and bars to the Education and Health Committee.

There are some good arguments for a ban on smoking in restaurants—and some bad ones. Del. Joe May recently relayed perhaps the worst reason of all. “I’ve had a number of restaurant owners and operators contact me about supporting it because they say it keeps them from having to do it,“ May said, according to Leesburg Today. “I have heard that from more than one owner or operator.“

Here’s a look at what’s coming up this week in the General Assembly:

A Florida jury decided yesterday that a longtime chain smoker’s death from lung cancer was caused by nicotine addiction, a potentially costly loss for tobacco giant Philip Morris and an important test case for thousands of similar lawsuits. The lawsuit by Elaine Hess, widow of Stuart Hess, is the first of about 8,000 such cases to go to trial since the Florida Supreme Court in 2006 threw out a $145 billion jury award in a class-action lawsuit on behalf of thousands of smokers and their families.

A bill to ban smoking in motor vehicles when children are present has passed the State Senate. Violators could be fined $100. “This is about the health of our children,“ said the bill’s sponsor. There’s a shock. These days, every proposal under the sun is sold as necessary for the sake of the children. On the other hand, not every proposal is sold as necessary to prevent child abuse—but that’s how Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw put it. Noting that child abuse is illegal, he said smoking in the car with children should be, too. “If [that] isn’t child abuse, what is?“

For the owner of McLeans Restaurant on West Broad Street, a state ban on smoking in restaurants represents a bailout of the environmental kind. “I’m all for it,“ said Dionne Kelleher, hours before the House of Delegates passed a watered-down version of a proposed smoking ban.