A heavily amended version of the smoking ban bill was given final approval today by the Indiana State Senate.

29 senators voted yes, while 21 voted no.

“I think passing this bill out of the senate is still a significant step forward, I had a lot of questions as to whether there would be 26 votes for any type of legislation that was called a ‘smoking ban,’ so this is progress,” said Sen. John Broden, (D) South Bend.

Final approval came one day after senators substantially weakened the bill by tacking on 11 amendments.

By the time it was over, the ban no longer applied to bars and taverns, charity bingo games, retirement communities, and residential mental health facilities.

“I’m not sure I know what’s in this bill anymore after yesterday,” said Sen. Vi Simpson, (D) Ellettsville.

Some who were sure what the bill contained, weren’t pleased. “If we truly believe in this, we would have banned it everywhere and we chose not to,” said Sen. Richard Young, R-Indianapolis.

The same bill that was criticized for not going far enough was also attacked for going too far.

”Next, we’ll be telling people how many Snicker bars they can buy in a year, how many hamburgers you can buy in a year, how many Cokes etcetera,” said Sen. Phil Boots, (R) Crawfordsville.

Sen. Carlin Yoder, (R) Middlebury voted against a “watered-down bill with so many exemptions that I could no longer view it as a true smoking ban.”

On the other hand, all those amendments simply strengthened the resolve of Sen. John Broden. “You have a number of people who want to kill this bill and they’re going to use whatever means they have and sometime that means offering poison pill amendments and so we had a number of those yesterday, it was frustrating, disappointing….” Sen. Broden voted yes, saying, “I wasn’t going to give them that satisfaction.”

The smoking ban bill is now headed for a house/ senate conference committee where lawmakers will try to work out a compromise that is acceptable to both houses.

The current legislative session is scheduled to end on March 14th.

Casting 'yes' votes today were Senators Arnold, Zakas, and Broden.

Casting 'no' votes were Senators Mischler, Yoder, and Glick.