COLUMBIA -- A statewide smoking ban may be debated in the S.C. House of Representatives during the upcoming legislative session, House Speaker Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston, said Thursday.

But President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell, Harrell's counterpart in the Senate and a Charleston County Republican, said a state ban is philosophically inappropriate and that bans passed by counties and municipalities -- such as the Beaufort County and the Town of Bluffton bans that take effect next week -- conflict with state law.

Beaufort City Council officials said they plan to consider a ban early this year, and the Hilton Head Island Town Council will consider one in February.

McConnell's comments echoed Harrell's sentiment that the House is more "sympathetic" to the idea of a statewide ban than the Senate. The new legislative session begins Tuesday.

On the legality issue at least one judge disagrees with McConnell. Circuit Court Judge Deadra Jefferson dismissed a lawsuit filed against the Town of Sullivan's Island last month challenging its smoking ban, though the suing party said it would appeal. Beaufort County's smoking ban is modeled after Sullivan's Island's.

The Clean Indoor Air Act of 1990 was likely the state law McConnell thought local smoking bans conflicted with. The suing party in the Sullivan's Island case attempted to prove that the law, which forbids smoking in some indoor areas including schools, government buildings and theaters, also blocks local government from adding additional smoking restrictions.

Philosophically, McConnell frowned on unnecessary government intervention of property owners' rights.

"The market will take care of it," he said, adding that enforcement of such a ban would divert police from more important matters, likening it to New York City's trans fat ban in restaurants.

"I'd rather have police patrolling streets ... than patrolling kitchens," Harrell said.