Smoking Bill Turned Aside Without Vote : Legislation: Senate committee asks author of sweeping measure that would prohibit smoking in the workplace to return next year for another chance. Assembly has approved it.

SACRAMENTO —  The state Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday dealt an apparent fatal blow to chances for passage this year of Assembly-approved legislation that would prohibit smoking at nearly all indoor workplaces in California.

The sweeping bill, by Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Brentwood), fiercely opposed by the tobacco lobby and major segments of the hotel and motel industry, was shunted away from a vote of the committee amid clear indications that it would be defeated.

Members of the committee, insisting they supported restricting smoking for health reasons, nevertheless claimed the measure raised social and economic issues too complex to deal with now. They urged Friedman to put the bill on the shelf and return next year for a vote.

Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles), one of the Legislature’s anti-smoking champions, told Friedman, “I think we are reaching too far in this one bill. . . . Maybe this was too big for us this year.”

Friedman, who had guided what he calls the toughest proposed anti-smoking bill in America through the Assembly and sought to negotiate a maze of hurdles in the Senate, refused to surrender outright. But he conceded that it may be impossible to find the favorable votes for the bill before the Legislature adjourns in 10 days.

“Realistically, given the time left and given the varying viewpoints of the members of the committee, I think that perhaps it makes more sense to work for a few more months on the (bill’s) language,” Friedman said.

While clamping a broad prohibition on smoking in enclosed workplaces, the bill would have excluded hotel and motel guest rooms, hotel lobbies, certain bars, large warehouses and bingo parlors.

Chairman Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), whose committee heard the bill previously, told Friedman that proposed amendments intended to win support for the legislation were too complex to thoroughly digest Tuesday night.

He said he would be willing to call another hearing of the committee before the legislative recess if Friedman could develop a compromise. But both he and Friedman indicated that this likely would not occur.

The key issue in the fight over prohibiting smoking in the workplace revolved around whether state government should preempt local governments’ authority to impose smoking bans. Friedman’s bill sought to allow local governments to impose tougher smoking restrictions, but not weaker measures.

The anti-smoking movement took on surprising momentum this year after the federal Environmental Protection Agency issued a landmark report saying 50,000 people a year die from the effects of secondhand smoke.

Friedman, chairman of the Assembly labor committee, carried the most sweeping of anti-tobacco bills, casting his proposal as a health and safety measure for workers.

It gained support from the California Labor Federation and the medical establishment. The California Restaurant Assn. endorsed it, in part because restaurant owners want a uniform statewide standard. As it is, restaurant owners must deal with local ordinances that restrict smoking in 270 municipalities.

The failure of the bill to come to a vote Tuesday night arrived as tobacco companies filed state-required reports showing they spent $1.33 million in California on lobbying and in campaign donations during the first half of this non-election year.

Philip Morris, the nation’s largest tobacco company, has the largest lobby presence of the companies in the capital. Philip Morris spent $347,790 in the three-month period between April and June when the fight became especially intense over Friedman’s bill to restrict smoking in enclosed public places. The amount was twice the sum the company regularly spends on lobbying in a quarter.

R. J. Reynolds, the nation’s second largest tobacco company, spent $104,013 on lobbying in the second quarter of 1993, up from $76,502 in the first quarter.

Three cigarette makers, the American Tobacco Co., Brown & Williamson and Lorillard, spent a combined $170,000 on lobbying.