A provision of the recently passed state budget would have prevented local health regulators from closing cigar bars and other tobacco-oriented establishments in Boston, Worcester, and Springfield that opened before Jan. 1, 2011. Though the amendment garnered support in both the Senate and the House, Patrick opted to keep public health authority in local hands for a second consecutive year.
“I am vetoing this section because it prevents local officials from protecting the public health of their citizens,’’ Patrick wrote in his veto letter.
But cigar bar supporters such as Representative Aaron Michlewitz and Senator Anthony Petruccelli, both North End Democrats whose districts include two of Boston’s three remaining cigar bars and who sponsored the budget amendment, say Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Public Health Commission officials are overstepping their bounds with their plan to close Boston’s three cigar bars. The rule was adopted in 2008 and extends to the city’s four hookah bars.
They say appointed officials, such as those who serve on local public health agencies, should not legislate local business.
“The great thing about this country is that you can choose where you go and what you do and how you live your life,’’ said Brandon Salomon, the owner of Cigar Masters on Boylston Street. “If they do this, they should eliminate cars and McDonald’s and all sorts of other things they say are bad for you.’’
For tobacco control advocates and public health regulators, however, the right of bar employees to avoid inhaling secondhand smoke is at stake.
Smoking regulation in Massachusetts has historically targeted secondhand smoke in the workplace. The state’s 2004 Smoke-free Workplace Law, which prohibited smoking in regular bars and restaurants, was designed to protect employees from secondhand smoke.
“Anybody working in a bar of any kind shouldn’t have to breathe in secondhand smoke in order to make a living,’’ said Michael Siegel, a tobacco control specialist at Boston University School of Public Health.
Yet cigar bars were exempted from the 2004 law because they are expressly designed for smoking, not eating or drinking.
