By Steve Lawrence Contra Costa Times [06/16/04]

Rebuffed at least initially by the Assembly, health and child-advocacy groups are hoping the Senate will give new life to an attempt to make California the first state to outlaw smoking in motor vehicles carrying young children.

Meanwhile, the author of a bill to bar smoking on state beaches put off a vote in a Senate committee, saying the measure needed amendments.

The smoking in cars bill would make it an infraction punishable by a fine to smoke in a motor vehicle carrying a child who was under age six or who weighed less than 60 pounds and was required by current law to ride in a child safety seat.

The measure, by Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh, D-South Gate, fell four votes short of passing the Assembly on May 27. It needed at least 41 votes, a majority of the 80-seat house, to move to the Senate. It got 37, with 13 lawmakers, mostly Democrats, not voting. Thirty legislators opposed it.

Supporters said the bill would help protect children against the serious health problems created by breathing secondhand smoke, but opponents called it too much government meddling.

To keep the issue alive, Firebaugh took over another legislator's bill that passed the Assembly as a child care measure and amended a revised version of the car smoking ban into it.

That bill is scheduled to be considered Wednesday by the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. If approved by the Senate, it would go back to the Assembly for another vote.

"The dangerous effects of secondhand smoke on young children are alarming," said Alecia Sanchez, senior policy advocate for the Children's Advocacy Institute, which lobbies on issues relating to children. "We believe there is great need to revisit the policy" in the Firebaugh bill.

The revised bill would take effect Jan. 1, 2006, instead of Jan. 1, 2005, and require that fines generated by the legislation be used for public education programs about the dangers of breathing secondhand smoke.

The beach smoking bill, by Assemblyman Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, would authorize fines of $150 to $1,000 for smoking or disposing of tobacco products on or within 20 feet of one of California's 62 state beaches.

Offenders who left cigarette or cigar butts on the beach could also be required to pick up litter on state beaches.

A broader bill by Assemblyman Paul Koretz, D-West Hollywood, that would ban smoking on all state and local public beaches is scheduled to be heard next Tuesday by the Senate Natural Resources Committee.

Read the bills, AB1569, AB1583 and AB2997, at www.assembly.ca.gov and www.senate.ca.gov

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