(Radio Iowa) – There’s a showdown in the Iowa legislature over smoking. Republican Representative Shannon Lundgren of Peosta plans to overhaul a senate-passed bill to let cigar bars sell alcohol. If the bill comes up in a House committee tomorrow (Thursday), Lundgren plans to turn the bill into a ban on smoking on the gaming floors of Iowa casinos — something Lundgren’s proposed before — only to see it stall in the senate.

“It sends a message to the senate that they probably should have paid attention to the bill that they had in front of them this year instead of sending us something to actually expand smoking in Iowa,” Lundgren said. Cigar fans like Oliver Bardwell of Clive testified today (Wednesday) at a legislative hearing on the Senate cigar bar plan. Bardwell says cigar smokers should have the freedom to have an alcoholic drink while they’re smoking a premium cigar at a business.

“At the end of the day, this is about small businesses, clarity in law and trusting adults to make adult choices,” Bardwell said. “Iowans shouldn’t be held back by antiquated regulations that no longer fit with how people live today.” Maria Steele of Adel is a nurse practitioner who has undergone treatment for lung cancer.

She opposes the Senate bill that would exempt cigar bars from Iowa’s Smokefree Air Act. “With the rates of cancer in Iowa, why do we want to have laws that increase health risks?” Steele said. “I’ve seen cancer of the tongue and the throat and lung cancer kills more people than breast, colon and prostate cancer combined.”

Friday is a deadline for policy bills like this one that passed the Senate to win approval in a House committee. House-passed bills also must clear a Senate committee this week, too.