Chamber of Commerce Smoking Plan Backed

A long-delayed plan by the Orange County Chamber of Commerce to have private companies make and enforce their own rules on smoking won endorsement Wednesday from the Board of Supervisors.

By unanimous vote, the supervisors ordered the chamber to report in six months on how companies are implementing the program in unincorporated areas of the county.

The board also asked the county administrative office to compare the voluntary plan to mandatory programs in local cities that have passed smoking laws.

County officials said Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, Tustin and Yorba Linda have mandatory no-smoking programs and other cities are considering them.

“We’ve had strong grass-roots support” from chamber members for the voluntary program, Robert J. Waller of the chamber told the supervisors. “We know we’ll make it successful.”

‘Toxic Waste’

But Jules Kerker, an anti-smoking activist, told the supervisors that letting private firms handle the problem was akin to making proper disposal of toxic waste voluntary.

“Smoking certainly is the dumping of toxic waste into the air that we all must share,” Kerker said.

Last June, the supervisors decided not to pass a law but to let the Chamber of Commerce take the lead in developing and publicizing a voluntary plan for businesses.

However, they did tighten restrictions on smoking in buildings owned or leased by the county and vowed to start enforcing the 11-year-old, long-ignored law requiring no-smoking sections in restaurants seating 50 or more people.

Although the supervisors last year originally gave the chamber 90 days to draft a plan and another 90 days to implement it, they later extended the deadline to the end of the year.

The chamber sent 5,266 questionnaires to major companies in the county and got 796 replies, a response rate of just more than 15%. Of those answering, 54% reported having rules on smoking in the office, 7% said they were working on a plan and 27% requested a copy of the chamber’s draft plan, chamber officials said.

3 Model Plans

The business group came up with three model plans, ranging from a ban on all smoking in the office to a policy urging “a reasonable effort” to separate smokers and nonsmokers.

Ralph B. Clark, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, said that “this is a six-month plan that I will be very closely monitoring in my office.”

Clark said the county would keep its own telephone “hot line” open for complaints from nonsmokers and warned that if the voluntary plan does not work, “we’ll have to take the next step.”

None of the five supervisors smoke, but some urged that “government stay out of the private sector,” as Supervisor Harriett Wieder put it. Other supervisors said they were not sure how to enforce a law if one were passed.

The chamber’s progress reports will be reviewed by a committee of county officials, supervisors’ aides, representatives of the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Assn., the American Lung Assn. and the chamber.