Casino smoking ban gets Ritter’s approval

DENVER - It will be easier to breathe in Colorado casinos next year, but not easier to get a driver’s license.

Gov. Bill Ritter signed several major pieces of legislation on Friday, including a ban on smoking in casinos that takes effect Jan. 1. But he also vetoed five bills, including a much-debated measure that would have allowed the use of more types of documents to receive state identification.

Democrats had lobbied for the casino smoking ban, House Bill 1269, after the Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act passed last year with an exemption for gambling halls, as well as cigar bars and smoking lounges at the Denver International Airport. Bar owners said it put them on the downside of an uneven playing field, and casino employees complained that they felt their health was not considered as important as that of other workers.

“We felt the employees were discriminated against, that they were treated like second-class citizens when this exemption was included,” said Stephanie Steinberg, chairwoman of Smoke-Free Gaming of Colorado. “Now, they feel like they’re first-class citizens again.”

Republicans, however, criticized Ritter as having a “nanny-state” mentality and telling businesses how to conduct themselves.

“There will be people who say we should out- law smoking now,” warned Rep. Larry Liston, R-Colorado Springs. “Or there will be people who say you can’t smoke in your own house anymore.”

Ritter also signed House Bill 1040, by Rep. Amy Stephens, which was shuffled through more committees than any other bill of the 2007 session before receiving overwhelming approval from both houses.

The law requires warrants to be issued for illegal immigrants who are deported before they are tried for local crimes, ensuring that if those immigrants return to the country and get arrested again, they will stand trial for their first offenses. Many judges now dismiss those first charges upon deportation, clearing their records.

“I’m so glad,” said Stephens, a freshman Republican from Monument.

Among the other bills Ritter signed Friday were a ban on the use of employees’ medical history in determining small-business insurance rates and a package of laws designed to protect potential home owners from unscrupulous mortgage brokers.

Ritter’s biggest veto was of House Bill 1313, which would have allowed the use of more types of documents, including school records and passports, to obtain a Colorado driver’s license or state identification card.

Secretary of State Mike Coffman and former Gov. Dick Lamm warned that if the law was OK’d, illegal immigrants could take advantage of the looser rules to obtain false identification and move freely throughout the country. But Ritter, in his veto letter, said that he already has worked with the Department of Revenue to expand the list of documents and that approval of HB1313 would have supplanted the department’s rule-making authority.

“The opposition to this was grossly mischaracterized,” said sponsor Rep. Rosemary Marshall, a Denver Democrat who said she was surprised and disappointed by the veto.

Among the other bills Ritter rejected was House Bill 1356, a statutory fix by GOP Rep. Bill Cadman of Colorado Springs that would have taken out of statute the ethics requirements included in last year’s Amendment 41. After a court suspended the provisions of the amendment Thursday, Ritter said the statutory measures are still needed.

Also, the governor vetoed Senate Bill 84 by Minority Leader Andy McElhany, R-Colorado Springs, saying that the creation of a database for registered interior designers proposed in the bill did nothing to advance public safety. The veto came one week after McElhany criticized Ritter for being too soft with the veto pen and “rubber-stamping everything that comes out of a left-wing Legislature.”

CONTACT THE WRITER: (303) 837-0613 or ed.sealover@gazette.com