Gov.-elect Parris N. Glendening said yesterday that he supports the state's workplace smoking ban, although he plans to modify it slightly if it passes legal review.
The incoming governor's stance should clear one potential obstacle to a speedy legal review of the regulation, considered the toughest in the nation.
Mr. Glendening said during the campaign he planned to rewrite the regulations to make them more business-friendly, a move that could have pushed enactment back a year.
But yesterday he said he has written the judge who is hearing the court challenge to the ban to tell him that he would not intervene in the review process.
Mr. Glendening said, though, that he still wants to review the ban's effect on small restaurants and businesses that can't afford to install expensive air filtration systems.
He said he is also concerned about the possibility that hotels could be heavily fined as a result of guests breaking the rules and smoking.
Those changes would come after the legal review, Mr. Glendening said.
"If there is a necessity for changing the regulations subsequently, we would have the opportunity to do so through the normal regulatory process," he said.
The workplace smoking ban, proposed last year by the Schaefer administration, is on hold pending a review by Talbot County Circuit Court Judge William S. Horne.
As expected, Gov. William Donald Schaefer yesterday named anti-smoking advocate Martin P. Wasserman to be secretary of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Dr. Wasserman, who was Mr. Glendening's choice, replaces Nelson J. Sabatini, who resigned.
Mr. Schaefer said he wanted to ease the transition to the new administration by tapping Dr. Wasserman instead of appointing an interim secretary.
The joint appointment was unusual but Mr. Schaefer said he would do it again if other Cabinet jobs open before Mr. Glendening is sworn in next month.
Dr. Wasserman, who holds both medical and legal degrees, has been chief health officer in Mr. Glendening's home county of Prince George's since 1991. For four years before that, he was director of the Montgomery County Health Department.
Eric Galley, public policy director for the American Cancer Society's Maryland chapter, said the organization is "very pleased" with Mr. Glendening's support of the smoking ban and his choice of Dr. Wasserman.