Nevada may ease smoking ban

LAS VEGAS — The Nevada Senate put the state on track to become the first in the nation to ease restrictions it had imposed on cigarette use in public spaces.

The Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act, which took effect in 2007, bars smoking in any indoor space where minors may be present and where food is served. The Senate voted 16-5 Friday to advance a measure that would soften the statewide smoking ban.

The new bill, which moves to the Assembly for consideration, would allow taverns that offer food to allow smoking if they bar people younger than 21.

Many taverns in Nevada have video-poker slot machines that provide a significant source of revenue, but the Nevada Tavern Owners Association said gambling revenue had fallen considerably since patrons were prohibited from smoking. Smokers have decided to gamble at the local casinos instead because the law excluded casino floors from the ban, said Geno Hill, the association president.

"This state is different than anywhere else in the U.S. because we have the slot machines," said Hill, owner of the Rum Runner taverns in Las Vegas. "Our members' gaming revenues are off 20 to 30 percent since the ban, and that's before the recession."

Gambling revenues overall plummeted in Nevada in the past year, down 18.1 percent in February compared with February 2008, according to the Nevada Gaming Control Board.

While a few cities, including Champaign and Urbana, Ill., and Friendship Heights, Md., have repealed smoking bans in the past decade, anti-smoking advocates said they knew of no statewide restrictions that had been eased or undone.

Health advocates dismissed the idea of a link between lost business and smoking bans, insisting that people get used to the prohibitions.

Jennifer Stoll-Hadayia, public-health program manager for the Washoe County Health District, which includes the Reno area, said state legislators could face a backlash against the measure as it moves toward passage in the Assembly. More than 54 percent of Nevada voters supported the smoking ban in November 2006.

State Sen. John Lee, D-Las Vegas, was one of five to oppose the new measure and said it was ironic that within hours of the Senate action, the Assembly passed a bill requiring public hospitals to provide outpatient cancer treatment to the indigent.

"One house says it's OK, if you're over 21, to go ahead and kill yourself and everyone around you ... but the other house says, 'Wait a minute, my gosh, if they have cancer we've got to take care of them,' " said Lee, a cancer survivor. "People don't seem to see the connection between the two."