Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- A bill to ban public smoking in the largest tobacco-growing state passed a North Carolina legislative committee Tuesday with bipartisan agreement that cigarette smoke harms health, though some Republicans chafed at what they saw as government meddling.

When a clear majority of North Carolina residents and lawmakers agree with scientific studies that secondhand smoking harms health, the Legislature is obliged to outlaw smoking in the workplace, said Rep. Wil Neumann, R-Gaston.

Doing otherwise "would be going against our oath to protect the health, welfare, and safety of the people of North Carolina," he told fellow members of the House Health Committee.

Video: North Carolina lawmakers debate public smoking ban

Larger screen

An Elon College poll of 758 state residents last week found eight in 10 said they consider secondhand smoke a threat to their health. Two-thirds of respondents said they support or strongly support a statewide law that would ban smoking in public buildings, offices, restaurants and bars. The House bill would also include all workplaces.

But Rep. Cary Allred, R-Alamance, doubted the harmful health effects of secondhand smoke, noting the spouses of his two smoking brothers and a stepfather appeared to suffer no serious illnesses. He argued the bill was a government intrusion into the business of restaurants and bars, which would lose patrons who smoke.

Like customers, hospitality workers "don't have to work there if they don't like the smoke," Allred said. "I think this bill goes entirely too far. There's too much intrusion. There's too much Gestapo atmosphere."

The committee approved the bill on a voice vote; it heads next to a House legal issues committee. Narrower legislation was defeated in the House in 2005 and 2007. A companion bill in the Senate has remained in a committee without action since it was introduced nearly two weeks ago.

The hearing included an emotional statement from Peg O'Connell, the widow of retired state insurance commissioner and former legislator Jim Long. She blamed the stroke that led to her husband's death last month on his decades-long smoking habit.

O'Connell said Long's years in politics included his share of smoke-filled rooms. He couldn't kick his nicotine addiction, but viewed restrictions on where he could smoke as helping him cut back, O'Connell said.

"As insurance commissioner, he saw the very expensive impact that smoking and secondhand smoke have on insurance costs," O'Connell said.

While North Carolina continues to rank first in U.S. tobacco production with 2007 market value of $550 million, the state's leading crop trails poultry and eggs at $4 billion and hogs at $3.1 billion among agricultural products.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)