A scary episode on the Alabama Senate floor led to a long and personal battle for Sen. Vivian Figures, one which could result in having the state’s clear air law named after her.

Legislation sponsored by Sen. Gerald Allen, R-Tuscaloosa, would rename the 21-year-old Alabama Clean Air Act after the state senator who was instrumental in getting it passed through an increasingly conservative legislative body in 2003.

“I didn’t know what it was,” Figures recalled with AL.com, talking about her initial asthma attack that prompted her quest to get the Clean Air Act approved. “I went to UAB. Diagnosed with asthma.”

She added, “They didn’t smoke on the (Senate) floor, but it was in the hallways, the offices. There was no way you can separate the toxins and carcinogens of the smoke in the air. It would go through the vents, and it was everywhere.”

Figures remembers turning herself into a one-person investigatory operation, where she was termed the “smoke buster” inside the Statehouse.

“Everywhere there was smoke somewhere, I’d do an investigation and take care of it,” Figures said. “We had young ladies who were pregnant (inside the building). They didn’t need to be smelling that.”

Alabama was among the last states to approve a Clean Air Act in 2003, and it was criticized for not being tough enough. The American Lung Association repeatedly gives Alabama an “F” grade for not passing a comprehensive smokefree law that did not grant any exceptions to any business or entity operating in the state.

Alabama’s version prohibited smoking in government buildings like the Statehouse. Restaurants, however, were required to set aside smoking areas. Bars were exempted from the prohibition altogether.

Figures, though, praises a factor that she said put teeth into the bill in that local municipalities could adopt ordinances that go above and beyond the state law.

And they have. Alabama has more than 50 cities that have adopted smokefree provisions including prohibitions of smoking inside bars.

“The one thing I did not compromise on was that municipalities could pass something stronger,” Figures said. “That the cities could start doing it on their own.”

Restaurateurs began regulating themselves, opting to move the smokers outside their restaurants and to designated outdoor smoking areas.

Years later, it’s not even an issue for restaurants in Alabama.

“That law is so old that I really don’t think it impacts the business of most restaurants anymore,” said Mindy Hanan, president & CEO with the Alabama Restaurant & Hospitality Association. “I don’t really even see people smoking in outdoor areas of restaurants.”

David Rasp, an owner and operator of Heroes Sports Bar & Grille and The Royal Scam in Mobile, was one of the first to do so in coastal Alabama. He remembers how big of a deal it was to go smoke free at the Heroes in downtown Mobile, that he didn’t roll out the new policy until after Mardi Gras in 2010.

Rasp had a T-shirt made up that year which said, “Kiss your Ash Goodbye,” that his staff wore on Ash Wednesday.

“The whole thing went better than I had hoped,” Rasp said. “Nowadays, people are used to stepping outside for the smoke.”

The Mobile City Council, in 2012, adopted a ban that prohibited smoking within 15 feet of entrances to buildings where smoking is prohibited. Restaurants were included in the ban, but bars were not.

“I think the energy behind the whole thing in our entire market really was Vivian,” Rasp said. “If there was a circumstance of naming a law after an individual, this would be the case for it.”

Allen, the bill’s sponsor, said Figures is to be commended on her pursuit in getting the legislation adopted. Allen is also asking that e-cigarette use be banned under the Clean Air Act via his legislation in SB10.

“She was proactive on the issue,” Allen said. “Certainly, she must be commended for that.”

Figures said there has been legislation introduced in the past to rename the law after her. No other state laws are named after Figures.

“God bless her for fighting,” Rasp said. “It was the right thing to do.”