Organizers of an anti-smoking initiative were still picking up shattered glass from their Green Lake headquarters yesterday, one day after they discovered the weekend theft of petitions bearing about 1,000 signatures.

About 80 to 100 petitions for the Yes! on Initiative 901 campaign were stolen after someone smashed a second-story window, climbed into the office and apparently scavenged through desk drawers and boxes, said campaign director Megan Sather.

The theft and a similar break-in at a signature-gathering company in Lacey, Thurston County, come less than two weeks before the organization's July 8 deadline to turn in the roughly 225,000 signatures necessary to put the initiative on the November general-election ballot.

The initiative would expand the statewide Clean Indoor Air Act to prohibit smoking not only in all public buildings and vehicles, but also in privately owned restaurants, bars and places of work. The ban would not apply to tribal casinos or other businesses.

A similar initiative, I-890, failed last year when supporters failed to collect enough signatures to place it on the ballot.

"It's unfortunate that this kind of thing has to happen around a political process," Sather said. "Any interference in that process is shocking and disappointing."

Sather said she felt petitions were the burglars' sole target because cash, laptop computers and other office equipment were left untouched.

Another building operated by private signature-gathering company Progressive Campaigns in Lacey also was broken into over the weekend, but police said the office contained only folding chairs and tables, and nothing had been stolen. Peter McCollum, spokesman for Healthy Indoor Air For All Washington, the organization spearheading the campaign, said that about half of the total signatures had been collected by the company.

The burglary in Lacey was similar to the one in Green Lake, with a shattered window, said Lacey police detective Lt. Phil Comstock.

Comstock said that, although the crimes were being investigated independently, there appear to be links between the break-ins. Police said they have few leads.

"Could be something as sinister as political motives or it could be something as silly as a prank," McCollum said.

Opponents of I-901, including pro-smoking and tobacco advocates as well as some restaurant, bar and casino owners, say the proposal is unfair and could be detrimental to their businesses.

Gary Murrey, vice president of the Great American Gaming Corp., who oversees minicasinos in Lakewood, Tukwila, Everett and Kent, said I-901 would damage his businesses.

Murrey said that after the passage of a smoking ban in Pierce County, he lost 40 percent of his business there and was forced to lay off employees. Murrey said he would have had to shut the doors of the casino, but that ban later was overturned by the state Supreme Court.

Murrey has filed a rival measure, Initiative 911, which would ban smoking indoors in places where children were present but would allow adults older than 21 to light up in businesses such as bars and minicasinos.

"[I-901] creates an unfriendly business atmosphere and forces employees to work with the tribes," Murrey said. He said I-901 does not affect local tribal casinos and would give tribes a monopoly over smokers and laborers desiring to work in smoking establishments.

"My whole objective here is to give voters a choice ... to do and live in a society they want," Murrey said.

He condemned the thefts of I-901 petitions. He also acknowledged the I-911 campaign had fewer than 100,000 signatures, far below the number necessary to get the measure on the ballot.

Ari Bloomekatz: 206-464-2540 or abloomekatz@seattletimes.com