At the first reporting deadline in October 2003, contributions to the health groups’ Proposition 200, the Task Force to Eliminate Smoking in the Workplace totaled $6,054, virtually all of it coming from ACAS and Fairbanks. During this same period, Proposition 201, carrying the same name as Tempe’s repeal attempt, Citizens for Fair Non-Smoking Laws , received $33,000 in contributions, with most of it coming from ALBA members.Anticipating the strategy RJ Reynolds would use in 2006 to oppose a state smoke free initiative promoted by the health groups, Prescott’s bar-sponsored counter-initiative Proposition 201 was promoted as “anti-smoking.” It began: “The smoking of tobacco has been shown to be a danger to public health, safety and general welfare, the dedicated purpose of this chapter is to regulate the smoking of tobacco within enclosed public places and places of employment,” sounding like an actual smoke free ordinance.Despite this statement, Proposition 201 excluded bars and allowed easy hardship clauses for restaurants, though it did make workplaces smoke free. An Arizona Republic article noticed that “Proposition 201,indoor grow tables is pretty much a sham of a non-smoking initiative. It’s actually funny. You read the publicity pamphlet that painstakingly rants about the evils of smoking and then it doesn’t do anything about it.”The City of Prescott had also in 2003 appointed a Task Force to Eliminate Smoking in the Workplace as the City Council considered enacting a smoke free ordinance. The Task Force advised a smoke free ordinance similar to what Proposition 200 proposed, but the city council was opposed to taking action.
As a result, a ballot initiative, aided by ACAS and ACTA, brought the Task Force to Eliminate Smoking in the Workplace’s recommendations to the ballot. The public passed both Proposition 200 and Proposition 201 Because Proposition 200 garnered 130 more votes, however, its provisions went into effect, not those in Proposition 201. Studying sales tax revenues 6 months after the initiative went into effect, the city of Prescott’s Finance Department showed revenues in bars and restaurants to be up 4.9% from the previous year, indicating that far from harming the city’s economy, as opponents has alleged, the clean air act may have provided economic benefits.After their defeat at the ballot box, Citizens for Fair Non-Smoking Laws, led by Andy Tobin, unsuccessfully attempted to gather signatures to repeal the law in a May 2004 special election. A year and a half later, in March 2005 as the date for implementing smoke free bars neared, the same group of bars that comprised Prescott’s Citizens for Fair Non-Smoking Laws reappeared as the Prescott Free Business Association to repeal the smoking ordinance before the two-year exemption for bars expired in November 2005, again claiming that bars would lose money when they came under the smoking ordinance. Dr. Robert Matthies, co-chair of the smoke-free initiative in 2003, rebutted these claims in the local press.CFNSL attempted to gather signatures to bring the issue back on the ballot, but failed to gather sufficient signatures. Without incident, the smoke free Prescott ordinance included bars beginning November 2005.Coconino County, which includes Flagstaff, passed a county-wide smoke free law on November 4, 2003, including workplaces, restaurants, and almost all bars. After local tobacco control advocates in Coconino County asked the Coconino County Supervisors to adopt a county-wide smoke free law, the Supervisors agreed, asking Coconino County TEPP employees to facilitate going smoke free and to present at the hearings.Coconino County’s law allowed stand-alone bars to permit smoking as long as they did not serve food or share an entryway or wall with any other establishment.
This exemption was provided in part because 18 bar owners spoke against a comprehensive clean indoor air act at the Board of Supervisor’s meeting. In 2003, only one bar met this exemption. In 2005, a second bar bought this type of permit and was also granted an exemption.A weak ordinance was approved by the Peoria city council 6-1 on December 2, 2003 and went into effect March 1, 2004 that mirrored “accommodation” policies urged by tobacco interests.The ordinance restricted smoking in workplaces and restaurants, but not restaurant bars or bars. Restaurants existing before March 1, 2004 were permitted to allow smoking in a separately ventilated bar or room. Although all bars licensed after March 1, 2004 had to be smoke free, existing bars before then were unaffected by the ordinance.Instead of prohibiting smoking in workplaces, it required that employers “adopt, implement and maintain a written smoking policy” which addresses “the issue of smoking” without stipulating a smoke free environment.The ordinance also allocated $50,000 for $5,000 one-time hardship grants to businesses negatively effected economically by the smoking ordinance to help them build their separately sealed smoking rooms to permit smoking and non-smoking sections. Hardship exemptions could be extended for up to five years. Whether or not a restaurant had a bar area, it was permitted to allow smoking in a separately sealed and ventilated room, as long as the restaurant existed prior to January 1, 2004.Arizonans Concerned About Smoking and other health organizations viewed the Peoria ordinance as a failure. Peoria Mayor Bob Barrett disclosed that the city council moved to adopt the less stringent smoking ordinance to stave off a potential Tempe-styled initiative from ACAS and Arizona Clearing the Air in Peoria.Barrett believed that the smoke-free advocacy groups’ “plan was to have all the suburban cities pass the same ordinance and then they’d take on Phoenix… With Peoria being next on the list, we realized we had to try to revise the ordinance enough to keep the [smoke free] initiative [ACAS had planned] from coming onto our ballot.”Enacting the weak ordinance was a defensive move by the Peoria City Council to hold more stringent tobacco control at bay.
It was an effort to evade the costs to the city of Tempe beared resulting from the repeal attempts after Tempe for Healthy Smoke-free Workplaces won.Barrett acknowledged Peoria Council’s reasons for instituting their anti-smoking ordinance: “It worked, the initiative folks from Tempe complained about our new ordinance but went back to Tempe without trying to force a ballot issue. That’s how I help small businesses.”By the time Peoria passed its weak smoking law, ACAS already was focused on a statewide smoke free law.Flagstaff’s ordinance implemented on June 18, 1993, the strongest ordinance in Arizona at the time, made workplaces, restaurants , and retail spaces smoke free. Updating this ordinance, the Flagstaff city council voted on February 1, 2005 to pass a comprehensive clean indoor air ordinance covering restaurants, bars, and workplaces . Though during deliberations Vice-Mayor Al White moved to amend the ordinance to introduce exemptions for stand-alone bars ,large grow table this amendment was defeated 4-3 with council members Art Babbott, Karen Cooper, Kara Kelty, and Mayor Joseph Donaldson against. After hearing from residents advocating for the passage of the 100% smoke free ordinance, the council voted unanimously for the stronger version. Arizonans Concerned About Smoking joined with local Flagstaff tobacco control advocates Bernice Carver and TEPP’s Coconino County Program Manager Marty Eckrem to educate the Flagstaff City Council about the benefits a comprehensive clean indoor air ordinance. The ordinance went in to effect May 1, 2005.The ordinance even covered Veteran’s clubs, private clubs, and tobacco retail shops as well, all provisions remaining in effect because they are more stringent than the statewide Smoke-Free Arizona passed in 2006. After the ordinance was adopted, a city-conducted poll showed 68% of Flagstaff citizens thought city enforcement of the smoke free ordinance was good or excellent.Adopted on January 10, 2006, and in effect beginning April 10, 2006, Sedona’s smoke free ordinance originated from the text of the Smoke-Free Arizona statewide initiative with the intent to bolster the state initiative. The Sedona clean indoor air ordinance was virtually identical to the statewide law passed in the following November 2006, including 100% smoke free workplaces, restaurants, and bars. The ordinance also covered work-related vehicles when occupied by more than one person, sports facilities including pavilions, boxing arenas, stadiums, and health spas.
While Sedona’s ordinance was not coordinated with the statewide campaign, the Sedona City Council believed Smoke-Free Arizona’s statewide initiative was likely to pass, and adopting its proposed provisions would smooth the transition for the city going from their city ordinance to instituting the statewide law. The Sedona Chamber of Commerce did not take a stand on the smoke free ordinance in 2006, whereas the Tempe Chamber’s members stood against Tempe’s ordinance in 2002, reflecting increasing awareness of public support for smoking restrictions. The 2005 Arizona Public Health Association annual conference meeting in Sedona passed a resolution to only meet in smoke free cities. The APHA sent out a press release on this issue, and they mentioned how much they liked Sedona, and would like to hold their conference there again, if Sedona went smoke free. The Sedona City Council wanted the conference back in summer 2006, and so implemented their law to bring the APHA’s business back.194 Inspired by Flagstaff, and the Coconino County smoke free ordinance , the City Council of Sedona voted 7-0 to adopt the ordinance. In 2003, Representative Linda Lopez took up the cause of a state smoke free policy after talking to constituents who were wondering why a state clean indoor air policy was not already in place. Lopez, upon learning about the issue of tobacco control, became actively involved. In researching the issue with her staff, Lopez realized that in 1997 Senator Ken Cheuvront had tried to introduce legislation on clean indoor air. However, Sen. Cheuvront did not introduce a bill, because at a stakeholder meeting he convened, his idea for smoke free legislation met a strong negative response from the ALA, AHA, and ACS because these groups feared any statewide clean indoor air bill entering the Legislature would quickly be turned into a weakened version with preemption. When Representative Lopez held a stakeholder meeting in 2003, advocacy groups met her announcement with a similar response. ACAS championed Lopez’s bill, even though the AHA, ALA, and ACS thought that the state did not have the political momentum necessary to pass a genuine smoke free law, even though they supported the content and intent of her bill, HB 2629.Later, in March 2004, the AHA, ALA, and ACS, following ACAS, supported HB 2629 in a letter to all of the legislators stating that they supported the legislation as long as there were no weakening amendments. From the very beginning of Rep. Lopez’s plan to introduce statewide clean indoor air legislation, the media followed the smoke free issue, and the legislation once it was introduced, because ACAS’s Leland Fairbanks had sent out press releases to the media telling them about the very first stakeholders’ meeting. In a 2006 interview, Lopez remarked that Fairbanks was “the one who called the press when we had the first stakeholders’ meeting. I have to say, I would not have done that. I would have waited until we were further along. But I think it was a brilliant move, because it immediately got the attention of the media, and we just had that much more of a head start in terms of the media attention.”In the meantime, Rep. Lopez had become a tobacco control advocate, going to Prescott, Arizona, to help Prescott pass its smoke free ordinance in Fall 2003, and had numerous interviews and talk show appearances on the subject. All of this activity occurred as Rep. Lopez prepared for the 2004 legislative session to introduce the bill. Rep. Lopez also received support from an influential lobbyist, Eric Emmert, who had worked with the health voluntaries for the attempted East Valley smoke free ordinance.After meeting again with health voluntary organizations, community advocates, and hammering out the bill language with several sympathetic Republican House members including Rep. Colette Rosati , Lopez had sufficient support to introduce the legislation on March 4, 2004 which became HB 2629. HB 2629 covered all workplaces, restaurants, and bars, and allowed localities to adopt stricter smoke free provisions. Various trade associations the tobacco industry had worked with over the previous decade prepared to testify in opposition to HB 2629. These included the Tucson Chamber of Commerce, ALBA, and the Arizona Restaurant and Hospitality Association , all of which the Tobacco Institute had been giving financial support.