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Ruling on smoking could inspire others
Add CommentA judge's decision this week to uphold Sullivan's Island's first-in-the-state smoking ban gives a backbone to other anti-smoking laws popping up across the state, municipal officials said.
The decision that the Sullivan's Island ordinance does not run afoul of existing state laws also could encourage other towns and counties in South Carolina to jump on the bandwagon and adopt similar bans, they said.
But the group that brought the suit, representing a bar on Sullivan's Island, plans to keep fighting the issue all the way to the state Supreme Court, said Tim Holbrook, group spokesman.
The group is trying to prove the General Assembly prevented local smoking bans when it passed a law in 1990 prohibiting smoking in areas such as schools, government buildings and theaters. The group says that law prevents local action.
Circuit Court Judge Deadra Jefferson disagreed and dismissed the suit Wednesday, saying the town's ban on indoor smoking for bars, restaurants and workplaces was not prohibited under state clean air laws.
Press Release. (36.7 kB)"There is no language in the Clean Indoor Air Act ... that suggests, or compels, the conclusion that the General Assembly proposed to preclude local regulation in the area of indoor smoking," Jefferson wrote.
Howard Duvall, executive director of the Municipal Association of South Carolina, which provided legal assistance to Sullivan's Island, said the ruling is a victory for home rule and likely will embolden other towns to tackle the issue.
"I think the regulation of smoking is a public health issue that's time has come," he said.
But the residents who brought the suit on behalf of Bert's Bar still maintain the state law prevents local governments from enacting smoking bans. The fight is far from over, Holbrook said.
"We would not have taken up this fight if we weren't confident that it would be upheld in the Supreme Court," he said. "There's something disturbing about a law that criminalizes the use of a legal substance and dispatches the 'behavior police' to private property."
Since Sullivan's Island approved its ban in May, Beaufort County, Bluffton, Columbia and Greenville have adopted similar ordinances. Hilton Head Island jump-started the issue locally when a Town Council member proposed a ban in July. The full council gave it a preliminary approval Tuesday.
The outcome of the lawsuit makes it easier for Hilton Head to go forward with its ban, town manager Steve Riley said.
"I think it relieves a certain level of concern regarding enforcement and legality," he said. "From the staff level, for concerns of enforceability, it's a positive."
Council members said this week they may exempt from the ban establishments that primarily sell alcohol, a nod to those who believe that banning smoking violates the rights of business owners. But some residents and town officials believe such an exemption ignores one of the main purposes of the ban: to protect workers from secondhand smoke.
"We will enforce the law in Beaufort (County) and there's absolutely no reason why the Town of Hilton Head and other municipalities should not join us with as strongly worded an ordinance as the county has in place," said County Councilman Mark Generales, who championed the ban at the county level. "Bar and restaurant employees should not be discriminated against in terms of their ability work in an injury-free workplace. ... Bar owners' rights are trumped by employees health rights."
Hilton Head was scheduled to take the issue up again at the first meeting in January, but is postponing it until Feb. 6 to make sure all council members can attend, Riley said. The council may want to consider delaying an effective date until May to avoid having it take effect in the middle of the Verizon Heritage golf tournament, he said.
Contact Tim Donnelly at 706-8145 or .
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