Council OKs Ordinance for AIDS Victims

The Los Angeles City Council, worried that AIDS victims are being treated as “lepers,” Wednesday unanimously adopted an ordinance banning discrimination against people who have contracted the disease.

The sweeping ordinance--hailed as the first of its kind in the country--would allow the city attorney to sue employers who fire or refuse to hire AIDS victims, restaurants that bar people with the disease and landlords who evict tenants or who turn down prospective renters because of AIDS.

Schools also would be prohibited from barring AIDS victims or their siblings.

“Since its discovery a few years ago, AIDS has become a relentless killer,” said Councilman Joel Wachs, who sponsored the ordinance. “And yet a society which should be showing compassion to people who are ill is often shunning them like lepers.”

Urgency Measure

The new law, passed as an urgency measure, would take effect as soon as it is signed by Mayor Tom Bradley. A spokeswoman for the mayor said she expected him to sign it before the week is out.

Physicians who addressed the council Wednesday urged the measure’s passage, saying it was needed not only to crack down on those who discriminate against AIDS victims but to reassure worried people who mistakenly believe that it is necessary to discriminate because the disease can be spread through casual contact.

Dr. Shirley Fannin, associate director of communicable disease control for Los Angeles County, told the council that the law, which she helped draft, is needed as a means of “educating the public and as a way of protecting people who are not able to protect themselves.”

Alarmed Residents

Fannin said county health officials have received numerous calls from alarmed residents and have concluded that it is “quite clear that there is a panic-type reaction in the community.”

Other physicians joined in stressing that the acquired immune deficiency syndrome virus is transmitted through sexual contact or through a mingling of blood or blood products. The disease destroys the immune system and leaves the body prey to various ailments.

“We must make it clear to people how this disease and how this virus is spread,” said Dr. Neil Shram, chairman of the AIDS city-county task force. “This anti-discrimination ordinance, I think, would be a significant way of doing that. There is absolutely no medical reason not to support this ordinance.”

Although other cities--including San Francisco and West Hollywood--are considering similar laws, the Los Angeles ordinance is believed to be the first of its kind.

In New York, the legal director for the Gay Men’s Health Crisis said the law is unique. And officials of the National Gay Task Force said other cities are expected to study it.

But city officials also stressed that while the gay population is considered a high-risk group for AIDS, the ordinance will affect heterosexuals, as well.

Overcoming Fear

“This is not a gay ordinance,” said Councilman Ernani Bernardi, who chairs the council’s Public Health, Human Resources and Senior Citizens Committee. “The primary thrust is to allay the fears of the people in this community.”

The spread of AIDS has become so rampant that, according to a county health report released Wednesday, 12,256 cases have been reported nationwide including 1,060 in Los Angeles County alone. Only New York City with 4,045 victims and San Francisco with 1,383 have a higher number of cases.

Since the first of the year in Los Angeles County, an average of one person a day has died from AIDS or a related disease. Since health officials started keeping reports five years ago, 547 fatalities have been recorded locally.

Recounting testimony given at public hearings on the ordinance, Bernardi told other council members of people with AIDS who were fired from their jobs, booted out of their apartments and refused service at bars and restaurants. One person who suffered from the disease was shunted off and isolated from his fellow workers while another discovered that the local postal carrier refused to deliver mail to his home, Bernardi said.

Under the proposed ordinance, such activity would be unlawful.

Deputy City Atty. Maureen Siegel said her office would act on complaints by negotiating settlements or taking violators to civil court.

Dentists’ and doctors’ offices, hospitals, hospices and nursing homes are included in the ordinance. However, blood banks and sperm banks are exempted.

Siegel said the ordinance provides certain exemptions. For example, it allows employers to fire or discipline people with AIDS under certain circumstances, such as when a food worker has open sores that could be a public health danger, whether or not the sores are the result of AIDS.

It would also bar employers from requiring homosexual employees to take tests to prove that they do not have AIDS.