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• Florence City Council votes down proposed smoking ban  

Florence City Council members have voted down an ordinance that would have imposed a smoking ban in most public places.

Voting against it curing Council's regular meeting Monday afternoon were councilmen Ed Robinson, Billy D. Williams, Bill Bradham and Steve Powers. Voting in favor of it were Mayor Stephen J. Wukela, Councilwoman Octavia Williams-Blake and Councilman Buddy Brand.

At least 12 city residents spoke about the ordinance before council members voted.

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• Springdale bans smoking; 2 others consider it 

Springdale on Tuesday became the second town in Lexington County to snuff out smoking in restaurants, bars, stores and offices, and two neighboring communities may do likewise.

The ban in Springdale mirrors limits on lighting up in workplaces in unincorporated parts of the county effective Jan. 1.

It's time for the 11 other county municipalities without bans to follow suit to avert public confusion, Springdale Mayor Pat Smith said.

"We need consistency, not a checkerboard pattern where it's allowed in some places and not in others," he said.

His wish won't happen soon as some communities refuse to restrict where smokers light up.

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• Bingo fight lights up over smoking ban  

Bingo parlors on opposite ends of Richland County are suing each other, claiming their competitors are ignoring a county law that prohibits smoking.

The two - Carolina Gold Bingo on Decker Boulevard and Mr. Bingo on St. Andrews Road - have hired well-known lawyers, as well as private investigators to spy on each others' customers.

At the heart of the dispute is Richland County Council's indecision about how vigorously to enforce a law that has generated few reports of violations and carries just a $25 fine. . . .

The lengths to which the bingo parlors are going hints at the lucrative and competitive nature of the business.

The two parlors - among four total in Richland County - each grossed more than $700,000 last year. Carolina Gold was only open part of the year.

The operators don't keep all the profits, though.

Under state law, bingo games must benefit "fraternal, religious or charitable organizations," said Adrienne Fairwell, a spokeswoman for the S.C. Department of Revenue.

However, the state agency is not privvy to the individual contracts that set out how much of the net proceeds a promoter shares with a nonprofit group, she said.

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• Finally, Lexington County smoking ban OK'd  

Opponents of a workplace smoking ban said Tuesday that members of at least five organizations plan to target for defeat the five Lexington County Council members who voted for the ban.

After one of the longest and most divisive smoking-ban fights in South Carolina, County Council gave its ban final approval Tuesday by the slimmest of margins.

As it has most of the times it has voted, council split 5-4 on the ban, which takes effect Jan. 1 for all businesses in unincorporated Lexington County.

The five who voted for the ban are chairman Debbie Summers and council members Bill Banning, John Carrigg, Smokey Davis and Johnny Jeffcoat.

"John Carrigg is my representative, and I will do all I can to be sure he gets defeated the next time," said Paul Seidelson, a member of ABATE. . . .

Along with ABATE, the organizations whose members pledged Tuesday to unseat those voting for the ban were the Lexington County chapter of the 912 Project and a sister group from Northeast Richland, the Campaign for Liberty and Pelion Good Neighbors.

Most are conservative organizations that draw support from former presidential candidate Ron Paul and television commentator Glenn Beck.

Jim Hanks, with one of the 912 Project groups, said some members have compiled maps of council districts and begun canvassing businesses in Banning's district to build opposition to him.

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• Raids uncover cigarette network  

Four cigarette distribution and manufacturing companies have been raided, including one in north Mississippi, in the last two months as authorities continue a two-year investigation into an alleged tobacco black market.

Besides the Magnolia State, the black market network is believed to have ties to South Carolina and Kentucky, according to an FBI statement released Friday.

On May 26, a task force of federal, state and local law enforcement agents searched Global Distributing in Tupelo. The most recent raid was conducted Thursday at Holley Sales Group, a distribution company in Anderson, S.C. The FBI did not disclose what, if anything, was seized in those searches.

While the investigation has not yielded any arrests, "a number of subjects have been interviewed," the FBI statement said.

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• Smoking ban Day 1: So far, so good  

Friday, the smoking ban in the city of Rock Hill and York County took effect - and without a single complaint of violation, according to officials with both the city and county.

Nobody can smoke outside a public place within 10 feet of any front door either - according the rules of the ban.

But The Kickin' Pig has benches right next to the front door. So often those benches were filled with smokers. So Kickin' Pig owner Graylin Meadows, who opposed the ban but doesn't want to pay fines, brought out the orange cones from his storeroom. Meadows, cigarette in hand, irony spilling from his smiling mouth along with smoke, marched off 10 feet in a semicircle from his front door that fronts busy Cherry Road and set up a "smoke free" outdoor zone.

Then he stepped outside the semi-circle so as not to break the law.

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• Smoking ban in  

As of today, smoking is banned in bars and restaurants in Rock Hill and most of York County. While that will inconvenience some smokers, it represents a big victory for public health.

The decision to ban smoking in public buildings did not occur overnight. City and county officials first had to wait to see whether the state Supreme Court would approve smoking bans initiated in other cities before forging ahead.

Then, it was a matter of educating the public and persuading local elected officials that a smoking ban was the right thing to do. Mayor Doug Echols was an early and outspoken advocate.

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• Judge: Local courts to consider smoking violations break law  

A memo from South Carolina's top judge said any courts created to consider violations of local ordinances like smoking bans are illegal under the state's Constitution, an edict that has some municipal officials wondering how they should deal with violators.

"The courts are purportedly established for the purpose of hearing smoking infractions, as well as various other local ordinance violations," Chief Justice Jean Toal wrote in the one-paragraph memo sent Monday to municipal administrators and judges throughout the state. "The creation of these courts is repugnant to the long-standing concept of the state uniform judicial system."

Instead, Toal wrote, infractions of local ordinances - like bans on smoking in public places - should be heard by magistrate and municipal courts, bodies she said are constitutional.

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• South Carolina a magnet for cigarette black market  

South Carolina's low cigarette tax makes it a magnet for black market runners.

Since 1977, the state's tax has stayed at 7 cents per pack. That's 10 cents less than the next lowest state (Missouri) and $2.68 per pack less than the state with the highest tax (New York). Considering that the average tax nationwide is $1.21, buying cigarettes in South Carolina and trucking them to another state can be very lucrative.

There are two ways smugglers operate, said Earl Woodham, spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms office in North and South Carolina. . . .

Woodham said the smuggling problems won't change even if South Carolina adds a proposed 50 cent per pack tax. The difference is still so great that the state would need to raise it to $4 per pack to stop the black market trade to New York.

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• York County Council passes smoking ban 

York County leaders unanimously placed their final stamp on a countywide smoking ban Monday night.

The ban applies to all businesses in the unincorporated areas of the county, though municipalities such as Fort Mill, Clover and York won't be affected. Rock Hill passed a similar measure last month.

Under the ban, people who light up inside businesses, restaurants and other indoor public places could face fines as high as $50. Businesses that allow people to smoke in violation of the bans also could be fined.

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• Tobacco states weigh higher cigarette taxes to plug budget gaps, but some old habits remain  

Two of the nation's top tobacco-producing states are weighing whether to raise cigarette taxes to plug budget deficits that have sent politicians scavenging for sources of revenue.

The governors of Virginia and Kentucky have each proposed raising their cigarette taxes -- each currently 30 cents per pack -- to help offset revenue shortfalls of $2.9 billion and $456 million, respectively.

Such a move was once unthinkable in Virginia, where Philip Morris runs the world's largest cigarette plant miles from the state Capitol, and ceiling murals in the rotunda include impressions of the golden-brown tobacco leaf.

"I wouldn't be surprised if all the tobacco-producing states aren't at least considering it before long," said Amy Barkley, who directs advocacy efforts in the major tobacco states for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. . . .

Lawmakers in the six major tobacco states -- North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia -- have historically been more reluctant than other states to turn to their cash crop for extra revenue.

But since 2002, 44 states and the District of Columbia have increased their cigarette taxes. Still, while the average tax nationwide is $1.11 per pack, it is 33.5 cents per pack in tobacco states.

"A while ago some people would have said there's no way there's going to be any tobacco tax increase in any of these states, but there has been and it's been because of these dire budget needs," Barkley said.

That doesn't mean the taxes have had an easy time passing.

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• Tradition going up in smoke 

MULLINS -- The last of this year's tobacco crop went to market last week in the Pee Dee, where folks have become nostalgic about the golden leaves of autumn.

Few farmers, perhaps 200 in the entire state, make a living by growing tobacco now.

Yet for most of the 20th century, tobacco was the state's No. 1 cash crop.

Last year, it was sixth, behind chickens, landscaping plants, turkeys, cattle and cotton.

A growing tide of smoking bans, persistent efforts to raise the cigarette tax, even aging tobacco barns, sagging in the countryside, are symbols that a part of South Carolina culture has changed forever.

In Columbia and Richland County, smoking bans go into effect Wednesday, part of a trend that began in 2006 with the U.S. surgeon general's determination that there are no safe levels of secondhand smoke.

Now lifelong farmers such as 79-year-old Carroll Allen of Latta see the landscape changing around them.

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• SC Supreme Court: Breaking smoking ban not a crime 

The South Carolina Supreme Court has overturned the penalties for violating the smoking ban on Sullivans Island, but the justices still agree the bans are legal .

In the unanimous decision Monday, the justices decided while the town could ban smoking in workplaces, it couldn't make violations a crime because smoking in the workplace isn't against state law.

The original law called for a $500 fine and 30 days in jail for violators.

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• Farmers standing by tobacco, particularly as researchers find new uses for crop 

After a few ups and downs, including the War Between the States, which destroyed half the state's tobacco crop, South Carolina's "bright leaf" production rebounded, thanks to a top-quality crop and a heavy-smoking population.

Today, the Palmetto State's tobacco crop is considered one of the highest-quality, flue-cured leaves available, and demand has remained steady, despite the war on smoking here in the United States.

"Consumption here in this country has definitely gone down, but demand for our tobacco is up," . . .

While international smoking trends continue to drive up demand for South Carolina's tobacco, researchers are studying alternative uses for the plant.

"It's a plant that produces a fair amount of soluble protein in its biomass," explains Bruce Fornum,

Ph.D., of Clemson University's Pee Dee Research and Education Center, "So there's the opportunity to genetically modify that tobacco to produce other proteins that might be useful - possibly as an industrial protein or as a pharmaceutical protein. That would give tobacco farmers another avenue. . . .

Five or ten years from now, tobacco farmers could wind up in the pharmaceutical industry.

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• Smoking SC gov't workers to pay more for insurance 

Tens of thousands of South Carolina public employees and their family members who smoke or chew tobacco will pay an additional $25 a month for their state health insurance starting in 2010.

With a 3-2 vote Thursday, state budget officials made South Carolina the eighth state nationwide to charge state employees more if they or their spouses light up.

Gov. Mark Sanford called it a "small but meaningful step" toward making people responsible for endangering their own health.

"It's a case of recognizing cost," he said. He added, "People ought to have complete freedom on how they treat their body," but said nonsmokers shouldn't have to pay for their co-workers' bad health care decisions.

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