Going Smokeless?

Publication Date: 2006-07-20

• Author:Nathan Johnson
• Publication:Press & Dakotan

State Forbids Municipalities From Weighing In On Issue

Nationwide, there are 140 municipalities that do not allow smoking in workplaces, restaurants or bars.

However, in South Dakota municipalities and other local government entities are not able to weigh in on where smoking is acceptable. Like several other states -- including Nevada, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee -- South Dakota has a preemption law that makes the state Legislature the "exclusive regulator of all matters relating to the use of tobacco products." Currently, the state bans smoking in all workplaces, excluding bars, restaurants and casinos.

According to Bronson Frick, assistant director of the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation in Berkeley, Calif., preemption laws were introduced around the nation in the 1990s at the urging of tobacco lobbyists.

"The tobacco companies would prefer to fight one fight at the statehouse, where they're most powerful, than fight a hundred brushfires around the state," he said. "South Dakota, because of its pre-emption law, is unfortunately behind the curve in a lot of ways. Communities have not had the right to local control, the right to debate the issue locally and to have laws that are right for them."