Tennessee lawmakers approved a bill Saturday that would ban smoking in all buildings owned or operated by the state.

Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen, who describes himself as an avid nonsmoker, has not yet said whether he will sign bill.

The House voted 80-5 to ban smoking in Tennessee’s 528 buildings — 172 state-owned and 356 maintained and operated by the state. Three Democrats and two Republicans voted against the bill.

The Senate passed a similar bill earlier this week and agreed today with minor changes made by the House.

The House added an amendment that would allow hotels in state parks to have smoking rooms.

Anti-smoking bills have traditionally struggled in Tennessee, one of the nation’s top tobacco-producing states.

But the declining tobacco harvest in the state has coincided with greater momentum for anti-smoking measures in the Legislature. Tennessee’s 2004 harvest of 65 million pounds was about half the output of a decade earlier.

Source: WBIR

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