Business Apartheid Eased

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — The government today opened the downtown districts of Johannesburg and Durban to nonwhites to legally run restaurants, sell wares or practice law, the first break with apartheid policy segregating business areas by race.

Rules barring hotels and restaurants in those areas from admitting all races also were repealed. White business leaders applauded the change, but apartheid foes said it merely recognizes the reality that nonwhites have run shops in white areas for years and that decaying central cities need their business to survive.