The Surgeon General’s report that secondhand smoke can kill prompted renewed calls for restaurant and bar smoking bans in Baltimore and across the state Tuesday.

“Secondhand smoke is so dangerous that every Maryland worker needs to be protected from it,” said Kari Appler, director of Smokefree Maryland. “Bar and restaurant workers have been exempted” from the protection of law.

People who breathe unfiltered smoke from other people’s cigarettes are at higher risk for heart attacks, lung cancer, sudden infant death syndrome and heart disease, according to a report released by Surgeon General Richard Carmona.

“Secondhand smoke causes premature death and disease in children and adults who do not smoke,” the report states.

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Smoke from smoldering cigarettes and that exhaled by smokers contains cotinine, which is detectable in 43 percent of American non-smokers, according to the report.

“There is no minimum level of secondhand smoke that we can tolerate,” said Dr. George Bone, president of MedChi, the state medical society.

Members of Asian and Latino immigrant communities are disproportionately affected, advocates said.

“We really see this as a matter of health disparities in the state of Maryland,” said Dr. Sonia Fierro-Luperini, spokeswoman for the Maryland Hispanic/Latino Tobacco Control Coalition. “Latinos are predominantly working in the hospitality area. They are affected in a disproportionate way.”

Baltimore City Council Members Robert Curran and Kenneth Harris said they will continue to push for a restaurant and bar smoking ban for the city and put pressure on the state General Assembly to close that exemption in the state’s workplace smoking law.

The Surgeon General’s report is much smoke and mirrors when it comes to the economic effect on bars and restaurants, said Melvin Thompson, spokesman for the Restaurant Association of Maryland.

If a statewide ban is enacted, “you’re going to be pushing smokers from bars and taverns along the borders into neighboring states,” he said. A city-only ban would do the same to Baltimore’s nightlife. “Smoking bans have a big impact on alcohol sales in the bar areas of restaurants and taverns,” he said.

The proposed city law would outlaw smoking in every public indoor space that doesn’t make more than 50 percent of its revenues from selling tobacco and related products other than cigaretttes, Curran said. That would exempt cigar and upscale tobacco shops that provide a lounge or smoking area.

“This is a workplace health safety initiative,” he said. “The tobacco industry is really the only loser in this.”

At a glance

Maryland districts that ban smoking in restaurants and bars:

» Howard County — except separate smoking sections

» Charles County — except for bars and taverns

» Montgomery County — complete ban

» Prince George’s County — complete ban

— Source: Restaurant Association of Maryland

khille@baltimoreexaminer.com