It began as a New York City-style push to ban smoking in virtually every public place in New Jersey: bars, restaurants, museums, office buildings, ballparks.

But that was before the casinos, restaurant operators, bar owners, cigarette makers and their lobbyists showed up in force.

"It's like a toothless tiger now," one of the ban's proponents, Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Mercer), said yesterday after an Assembly committee amended the proposal to allow smoking in bars and in designated areas in restaurants and casinos.

The action followed a Senate committee's vote last week to exempt casinos and small, owner-operated bars from its version of the smoking prohibition bill.

Restaurant and tavern owners say the exceptions are needed to take the economic sting out of a smoking ban. Anti-smoking groups say the bills are now shot through with too many loopholes for some backers of the ban to stomach.

Gusciora said he is so disgusted by the revisions to his bill that he would not have voted for it if he had a seat on the Health and Human Services Committee, which approved the changes 8-0.

"It's terrible," Gusciora said.

The Assembly legislation "doesn't do anything for public health," Sen. John Adler (D-Camden), a sponsor of the Senate version, said.

The changes "exempted pretty much every place you can smoke in New Jersey now," complained NJBreathes director Larry Downs. "Today we got the tobacco industry version of the Clean Indoor Air Act, which is none. You can smoke wherever you want, whenever you want."

New Jersey law currently allows smoking in restaurants that permit it if they post signs informing customers they have a smoking section.

Restaurant and bar owners said a complete ban would devastate their businesses and spawn bankruptcies and layoffs.

"We don't want to be a prohibitionist society," said Dale Florio, a lobbyist for the New Jersey Restaurant Association and cigarette maker Philip Morris. He said "zealot groups" are pushing for a total ban instead of a fair compromise.

The Assembly bill would allow smoking in all bars, let casinos set aside smoking areas accounting for 20 percent of their premises, and allow restaurants to allow smoking in 20 percent of their seats. The Senate and Assembly bills both allow smoking in cigar bars, in social, fraternal or religious halls such as Rotary and Elks clubs, and in employee break rooms.

Gov. James E. McGreevey would prefer to let each town decide whether to ban smoking. But he has not said he would veto a ban if it reached his desk.

Lawmakers are not expected to finish debate on a smoking ban until after Nov. 4, when the entire Legislature is up for election. With the Senate, Assembly and governor's office in disagreement, the outcome of the debate is uncertain.

Assembly Majority Leader Joseph Roberts (D-Camden), who recently sold his interest in several restaurants and bars in Sea Isle City, helped hammer out the amendments. He met privately with some legislators during yesterday's hearing to press them to support the changes.

His co-sponsor, Assemblywoman Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen), said compromise was necessary to secure the votes needed to get the bill out of committee.

The New Jersey Restaurant Association led the fight against the bill yesterday, and the group brought to the hearing a Manhattan restaurateur struggling with the ban New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed into law this year.

"It's been a failure for us," said Ciaran Staunton, owner of O'Neill's, who said he laid off three of his 14 employees after the New York ban took effect March 30. "The people we've laid off now have clean air, but they have no jobs.

"We may not be in business this time next year," he added.

Restaurant Association officials said they would support a ban only if it is a "level playing field" covering the entire state and all establishments, including casinos, small bars and social clubs.

The American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, NJBreathes and the other supporters of the ban say stopping public smoking is warranted because secondhand smoke harms the health of nonsmokers.

"If you believe there's an economic impact, consider it a choice between a few bucks in the cash register and a cancer diagnosis," NJBreathes' Downs said.