_________________

Smoking measures bombs

Voters defeat proposition backed by tobacco companies

By Robert B. Gunnison and Greg Lucas

Special to the Free Press

SACRAMENTO -- Despite a multimillion-dollar blitz by tobacco companies, California voters overwhelmingly turned back a ballot measure aimed at stamping out local anti-smoking laws.

Among the biggest losers were Philip Morris and other tobacco companies that backed Proposition 188, which would have eliminated the power of cities and counties to pass stricter anti-smoking measures than those spelled out in the initiative.

Under Prop. 188, smoking would have been allowed in bars, special areas of other businesses and in 25 percent of a restaurant's seating capacity if certain ventilation standards were met.

In other results on state propositions, voters defeated Proposition 181, a $1 billion bond to pay for transit projects. The measure was part of a 1990 transportation package that doubled the state's 9-cents-a-gallon gas tax and called for spending $3 million in bonds for mass transit.

Voters reaffirmed the so-called "three-strikes-and-you're-out" sentencing law identical to a law that has been in effect since March.