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Alan Jilka describes his 2002 vote in favor of a partial ban on smoking in restaurants as the single most controversial vote in his 12 years on the Salina City Commission.

Monday, Kansas Gov. Mark Parkinson thanked the commissioners who supported that measure, saying it demonstrated that businesses could survive a public smoking ban, making it easier for lawmakers to enact a similar ban statewide.

"So whatever heat you took was worth it," Parkinson said.

Parkinson spoke briefly at a ceremonial bill signing in Salina for the new public smoking law. As he signed a copy of the measure, Jilka, Debbie Divine and Kristin Gunn -- all former commissioners and mayors -- together with a group that included current commissioner Norman Jennings, stood watching over his shoulder.

"Yes!" Divine exclaimed, as Parkinson finished his signature, to a round of applause from the audience gathered in a meeting room of the Salina-Saline County Health Department.

Those who didn't applaud included opponents who carried signs opposed to the bill, some of whom were allowed to stand quietly at the back of the room during the event.

Parkinson signed the bill into law Friday in Topeka at the Statehouse. The ban takes effect July 1.

"People might say, 'Well, you signed the bill into law Friday, how come you're out here today signing it again?' And I would say that I win so rarely that ..." Parkinson paused as he was interrupted by laughter. "We might have 100 bill signings today," he said.

Significant exemptions

Parkinson hailed the Clean Air Act as a great victory. The law bans smoking in restaurants, bars, offices and other public places. It specifically exempts state-owned and state-operated casinos, which the governor said is hypocritical. He has said it would be appropriate for the state to change that exemption in the future.

"You can't let great be the enemy of good," Parkinson said later, after Monday's signing ceremony. "If I had vetoed this legislation because of the exception, I wouldn't have seen it again."

Parkinson said it's possible that someone could push a "trailer bill" that would close the exception, but it's not likely so close to the end of the session.

Another significant exemption in the bill allows hotels and motels to set aside 20 percent of rooms for smoking.

Last month the House approved the bill by just six votes, 68-54. It had already passed the Senate. Rep. Charlie Roth, R-Salina, made the motion from the floor of the House to vote on the bill.

Parkinson said the bill stands for fundamental change "that will have the result of saving thousands of Kansans' lives in the future. People who might be against what we've done, we're going to save their lives, maybe their kids' lives, maybe even their grandkids' lives. You don't get a chance to do that very often."

In his remarks, Parkinson cited Roth and Democrat Lisa Benlon, D-Overland Park, as key advocates for the measure in the House. They helped lead a bipartisan coalition, together with numerous health advocates -- doctors, nurses and health professionals.

"Would the Legislature do the right thing or yield to the tobacco industry?" Parkinson asked. "When tested in this way, this year, Kansans won, the special interest groups lost, and Kansans got the clean air that they deserve."

The sky didn't fall

Parkinson said the research is quite clear that thousands of people die due to exposure to secondhand smoke, and new research is exposing stronger links between heart attacks and strokes.

What wasn't clear from banning smoking in most public places was the effect it would have on businesses, the governor said. So it was really great to have Salina pass a comprehensive indoor clean air ordinance banning smoking.

Salina's smoking ordinance went into effect in 2002. It banned smoking in restaurants between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m. Salina was the first city in the state with an ordinance restricting indoor smoking in restaurants.

In January 2009 a more comprehensive ordinance was passed, instituting a round-the-clock ban on smoking in most public places, including bars, hotels and motels and truck stops.

"The sky did not fall down. The health situation certainly improved. The restaurants didn't go out of business, the bars didn't go out of business. Everything still worked really well," Parkinson said.

Jilka remembers that for "three solid weeks" before the vote on Salina's first smoking ban, he was buttonholed by everyone he encountered about their opinion on the issue. He said he didn't have strong feelings either for or against the measure, but ultimately decided to cast his vote in favor because the majority of his constituents seemed to be in favor.

After the vote, he recalls that a truck stop in Salina posted the names and phone numbers of all three commissioners -- he, Gunn and Divine -- who voted in favor. He said for a few weeks afterward he would get angry phone calls in the middle of the night from angry truckers.

"I got to the point I was asking them where they were from," he said. "When they said 'Alabama,' I would hang up and go back to bed," Jilka said.

Divine agreed that she received more letters about the smoking issue than about any other she faced as a commissioner. For her, the vote came down to the oath she took as a commissioner to protect the health and welfare of the citizenry, she said.

Divine lost her former husband, David Reaves, to lung cancer in 1978, in Florida.

"So there was a personal factor," she said.

She remembers she also got a letter from a former fire department inspector who wrote that restaurants are required to throw out contaminated food when there has been a building fire.

"Why was it appropriate to smoke and spread second-hand smoke all over everyone's food?" Divine said the fire inspector asked. "I had to say, that seemed to be a good argument."

Gunn, whose last name was Seaton before she remarried, said she thought the ordinance represented good public policy. As mayor at the time, "it was my goal to help craft an ordinance that at least three commissioners could get behind. I'm very proud of Salina that we were at the forefront of this effort."

There are critics of the measure who still cite business owners' rights to make their own determination as to whether their customers should be allowed to smoke. A few more than a dozen protesters, some with signs, were lined up outside the health department Monday, waiting for Parkinson to arrive. Salina police officers were watching for any disturbances.

Bar owner Sheila Martin, of Hutchinson, said the protesters came from Hutchinson, Wichita and Clay Center as well as Salina.

"For me, it's a matter of private property rights," Martin said. "If you ring my doorbell and I let you in my house, does that make it public property then? What's the difference?"

Salinan Mike Wilson, coordinator for the Libertarian Party for the 1st Congressional District, stood with the protesters.

"Libertarians strongly believe in business rights, in personal rights and small government," Wilson said. "Here's an example of the government telling business owners what they can do in their own business. That's not proper."

n Reporter David Clouston can be reached at 822-1403 or by e-mail at dclouston@salina.com.

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