Ad aims to revive bill on smoking ban

RICHMOND

Looks like Del. Terrie Suit, R-Virginia Beach, may be getting a lot of calls.

The Virginia Beach Restaurant Association is urging people across South Hampton Roads to phone Suit and ask her to revive recently killed legislation that would ban smoking in Virginia restaurants. The group made the request in a full-page advertisement Wednesday in The Virginian-Pilot.

Suit is the only the lawmaker who can breathe life into the legislation, under the rules of the House of Delegates. But she says emphatically that she will not.

A variety of bills to stomp out smoking in all Virginia restaurants or give localities the power to ban it in eateries were killed this month by a seven-member subcommittee of the House General Laws Committee.

Suit, as chairwoman of General Laws, is empowered to ignore the subpanel’s action and bring the bills up for consideration by the entire 22-member committee.

That would be the fair thing to do, officials of the restaurant association say. They say it is unjust that restaurant smoking bans – which affect health and were approved by the 40-member state Senate – can be crushed by only seven of the 100 members in the House of Delegates.

“There’s a lot of support for the legislation,” said Matt Falvey, a past president of the association, which represents about 150 restaurants. “We feel all representatives should have a chance to vote on it.”

Suit said she does not want to waste time on measures that have no chance of passing the full committee. She noted that the state ban was killed 7-0 in the subcommittee. “That does not warrant bringing it up again,” she said.

Among the members of the subcommittee is Del. John Cosgrove, R-Chesapeake.

Suit said it would “set a bad precedent” to override the subcommittee. A lthough she supported a smoking ban last year, she said she opposes it this time. She said eateries should be free to decide whether to allow smoking and patrons should be free to choose where to dine.

“It’s so overwhelming, the number of restaurants that have gone smoke-free, that I don’t believe government has to mandate it,” she said.

Falvey said Suit is forgetting about restaurant workers who inhale secondhand smoke. “The employees often can’t vote with their feet,” he said.

The ad is headlined, “An open letter to the dining public.” It decries secondhand smoke and gives the phone number of Suit’s office in Richmond and the e-mail addresses of two powerful Republicans also opposing a ban: Speaker William Howell of Stafford and Majority Leader Morgan Griffith of Salem.

Although the Virginia Beach association supports the ban, many other restaurateurs and groups across the state opposed the legislation, including the Virginia Hospitality and Travel Association.

Warren Fiske, (804) 697-1565, warren.fiske@pilotonline.com