Click here to subscribe today or Login.
The state House postpones further consideration of the bill until this afternoon.
HARRISBURG — The state House of Representatives continued to debate how strict to make a proposed statewide smoking ban on Saturday, but made little progress before leaving without a final vote.
After more than 2 1/2 hours, the House voted to postpone further consideration of the bill until this afternoon at the request of House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese.
“Conceivably, with the debate going as it is, we could be going for hours and hours and hours,” said DeWeese, D-Greene.
One change the House approved would exempt private, nonprofit clubs from the ban.
Rep. Douglas Reichley, R-Lehigh, said during debate that his amendment would give organizations such as the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars the flexibility to decide whether to allow smoking in their buildings.
“This is a matter of individual choice and individual rights, to a certain degree,” said Reichley, whose amendment was approved 114-78.
But opponents insisted that any smoking ban should be uniform.
“We can’t be in this business of picking which Pennsylvanians are going to be healthy and which Pennsylvanians aren’t going to be healthy,” said Rep. Dan Frankel, D-Allegheny.
Reichley’s amendment was just one of many proposed exceptions on the House’s agenda Saturday. The chamber rejected an amendment that would have exempted “adult-only” establishments — businesses that do not serve anyone under 18 years old who is not accompanied by a parent or guardian — from the smoking ban.
The House took up the debate for the second time in eight days on Friday, when members voted 113-82 to defeat a key amendment that would have added numerous exceptions to the measure.
The amendment would have permitted smoking anywhere on casino floors, banned smoking in any private home used as a child-care facility, and allowed Philadelphia to keep its more stringent smoking ban in place.
It also would have allowed smoking to continue in bars where food accounts for less than a fifth of total sales, in as many as one-quarter of any hotel’s rooms, and in homes not used as adult day-care or health care facilities.
The Senate approved a smoking ban on June 26, with many of the same exceptions that were being debated in the House. But Gov. Ed Rendell has threatened to veto the Senate’s version because it would allow smoking in smaller at-home day-care settings.