State Senator Pushes Anti-Smoking Bill For 16 Years

Every year you can count on the two state budgets to come through State House, and Senator Vivian Figures’ anti-smoking bill. While the budgets always pass, Figure’s bill never does. 

 

“It’s important to me because I contracted chronic bronchitis while in college breathing second hand smoke. And when I returned to Alabama and was elected to the senate years later, walking through the halls here going to the chamber through clouds of smoke, people standing in the hallway smoking cigarettes, my condition escalated to asthma,” said Sen. Figures.

 

Her bill looks to ban smoking in public places as well as businesses. The bill has been amended this year to exempt bars and clubs. She says that even though she used to get frustrated that it never passed, she’s come to terms with it now. 

 

“But now my attitude is that God is going to let it pass at the perfect time. Because during those 16 years I’ve been able to bring awareness to the entire state,” said Figures. 

 

The bill has passed in the senate and now has to go through the house, where it has routinely died. Representative Mary Sue McClurkin is carrying it forward there, and as a cancer survivor herself, she is pushing very hard for it to pass.

 

“When you look at North Carolina, a tobacco raising state, they passed this kind of legislation years ago. And they even have it marked off around public buildings, 25 feet you cannot smoke. So that would really be great if we could have something close to that,” said Rep. McClurkin.