Compromise may lead to smoking ban in casinos

DENVER - A group of legislators Friday reached agreement on a date to end smoking in casinos, but clean-air advocates said the battle to snuff out cigarettes and cigars in more places has just begun.

A conference committee recommended that casinos go smoke-free beginning at 8 a.m. Jan. 1, a compromise between the July 1, 2007, date pegged by the House and the July 1, 2008, deadline amended into House Bill 1269 by the Senate. Members of both chambers must support the new date for the ban to pass, but sponsoring Rep. Anne McGihon, D-Denver, said the compromise has enough votes to pass.

“We’re going to give them New Year’s Eve,” McGihon said of the decision to begin the ban when casinos open Jan. 1 rather than right when 2008 begins. “It frankly makes no sense to make them stop in the middle of New Year’s Eve.”

Casinos were exempted from the indoor smoking ban that took effect July 1, along with cigar bars, businesses with three or fewer employees and smoking lounges at Denver International Airport.

Meanwhile, a bill to repeal the cigar-bar exemption received the backing of the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee on Wednesday and is on its way to the Senate floor. Legislators had tried to clarify the exemption earlier in the session, but when that failed, they turned to banning cigar bars entirely.

A prominent backer of the Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act said he plans next to go after the four spots in DIA where people can smoke.

R.J. Ours, government relations director for the American Cancer Society in Colorado, said he’s looking at other airports nationwide and compiling a list of those that have banned smoking.

He’d like to bar smoking completely from the facility, not allowing it even in the small, unstaffed booths that exist in other airports, and would not rule out banning smoking altogether in the future, he said.

Contact the writer: (303) 837-0613 or ed.sealover@gazette.com