IRVINE : Smoking Ban Delay Aids School Bingo

Bingo players will still be able to smoke at twice-weekly bingo games at a local middle school, but they’ll have to step outside to light up.

The Irvine Unified School District board has agreed to wait until a July 1 deadline to comply with a state-required smoking ban on all school property. The smoking ban is required whether or not students are on campus.

The delay gives high school music boosters seven more months to raise money from local bingo games. Peggy Stalter, vice president of the Irvine High School Instrumental Music Boosters, says a survey of bingo players indicates most will not attend the games after the total smoking ban goes into effect.

Bingo raises about $60,000 a year for instrumental music programs at the district’s three high schools. But boosters say the cost of leasing an off-campus location is too high. And nonprofit organizations are reluctant to allow smoking in their buildings.

“The school district is still looking for a fairy godperson to help us out,” school board member Mary Ellen Hadley said.

A federal law, which goes into effect Dec. 26, will ban smoking inside buildings used by all public schools, public libraries and child-care providers that receive federal funds. But tougher state legislation that goes into effect July 1 will require public school districts and county government offices to enforce a nonsmoking policy on all property.

High school music boosters asked the school board to pass a resolution in support of amending the anti-smoking legislation, but the trustees declined.

“We are pledged to be a no-smoking district,” Hadley said, “but unfortunately it pits two important things against each other.”