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RALEIGH (AP) — The state Senate on Monday gave final approval a smoking ban in nearly all restaurants and bars, building momentum to restrict secondhand smoke in the country's largest tobacco-growing state.

The Senate voted 30-18 in favor of the measure that next returns to the state House, which passed a broader version last month and where bills that made similar attacks on secondhand smoking have died twice since 2005.

The bill's primary sponsor said he believes House members will support some kind of smoking ban and expects it will probably be a negotiated compromise with the Senate based on the competing proposals. Both chambers would then have to vote again on the final version.

"The good side of their bill is they have restrictions on bars and we did not. The good side of our bill is that we have some workplaces," said Rep. Hugh Holliman, D-Davidson, a two-time lung cancer survivor and House majority leader.

"So there's some things that we need to talk about."

The House version would ban smokers from places where children under age 18 visit or work. That would have allowed smoking in self-standing lounges but banned it from restaurants with bar sections.

Health groups including the American Heart Association and other health groups have argued that secondhand smoke is a serious, preventable health risk. Opponents including free-enterprise advocates Americans for Prosperity, which argued banning smoking from private businesses violated the right of owners to choose whether to allow smoking.

The arguments were repeated during Monday's debate when Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, tried to amend the measure to allow smoking in for-profit private clubs. Senate Democrats argued Berger was introducing a loophole that could allow businesses to form membership-only clubs to cater to smokers.

"People will choose to frequent these establishments. People's choice is what we ought to be about. This is a legal product that generates millions, billions, of dollars for North Carolina," Berger said.

The Senate gave tentative approval to its smoking ban legislation late last week.

Earlier Monday, the Senate approved separate legislation that would expand a 2006 smoking ban inside the state's more than 70 prisons to include the grounds.

The measure approved 40-8 and sent to the House would make it a misdemeanor for someone to provide tobacco products or cell phones to a prisoner or to someone who delivers the items to an inmate.

Employees or prison visitors can keep cigarettes inside their locked car in prison parking lots and not break the law. Otherwise, smoking workers or employees could be disciplined or visitors could lose privileges.