News-Record.com

The General Assembly’s new smoking ban legislation isn’t all that it can or should be.

It should have been tougher and should have gone further.

But the bill, which passed Wednesday, is a healthy and historic step forward, all the same.

The bill bans smoking in all bars and restaurants in the state. It removes both the serious health hazards and annoyances of secondhand smoke in those settings. It also protects the health of employees who, until now, would have had two choices in establishments that allow smoking: breathe noxious air or get another job.

Ideally, an earlier, more comprehensive Senate version of the bill would have survived. That bill also would have prohibited smoking in nearly all workplaces. An estimated 26.8 percent of North Carolina workplaces still permit smoking, according to a 2007 US. Census study.

Of those businesses, bars and restaurants comprise only 7 percent.

Further, people can choose the bars and restaurants they frequent much more easily than they can decide where to work. You get a job where you can in this day and age.

The health argument was compelling.

Secondhand smoke has been proven to be a threat that can increase cancer risk, cause respiratory infections and aggravate heart ailments among nonsmokers.

The political landscape was another matter. The more sweeping version probably would not have mustered enough support to pass.

Even the less stringent version passed in the House only 62-56.

“It is not the bill we would have liked to have,” the bill’s primary sponsor, Rep. Hugh Holliman, D-Lexington, said last week.

But make no mistake. The bill that passed on May 13 and Gov. Bev Perdue promised to sign into law marks a significant milestone in a state in which such legislation would have been considered sacrilege not that long ago.

Tobacco is still the No. 1 cash crop in the state and a formidable, though declining force in the economy.

Some hold fast to the idea that this is an issue of personal choice — that this bill is as frivolous as wanting to ban a distasteful perfume.

Good try. But as unpleasant as it can be, bad perfume has not yet been documented to kill anyone.

It was well past time for lawmakers to clear the air.

Kudos to Greensboro's Alma Adams, Pricey Harrison and Maggie Jeffus for voting yes.