Councilman Would Extend Coverage to Restaurants, Stores, Arenas : Braude Will Seek Broader Smoking Controls in City

Citing the success of Los Angeles’ recently enacted law restricting smoking in the workplace, City Councilman Marvin Braude on Monday proposed a major expansion of the law to include restaurants, stores, indoor sports arenas and many other public places .

“The time has come when one ought to be able to go into a restaurant . . . and not have to have one’s health threatened by someone who starts smoking,” nonsmoker Braude said. Although some restaurants now voluntarily provide no-smoking areas, he said the number is too small. Under his proposal, restaurants with the capacity to serve 50 patrons or more would be required to set aside half the dining area for nonsmokers.

Smoking would be banned in child-care facilities and private schools in rooms open to children and among people standing in line to transact business inside buildings, such as banks. The prohibition would extend to at least half of the waiting areas at airport, bus and train terminals. Though smoking is generally prohibited by managers of such places now, Braude’s law would impose a legal ban on smoking in city libraries and in art galleries and museums where the city has jurisdiction.

$50 Fine for 1st Violation

A first violation would be punishable by a $50 fine and increase thereafter for repeat offenses.

Spokesmen for restaurant and tobacco trade associations objected to Braude’s proposal.

“Why do you need the law if the restaurant is willing to meet what the market demands?” asked Gerry Breitbart, director of chapter relations of the California Restaurant Assn., in an interview. He said there are 19,000 eating and drinking establishments in Los Angeles but could not say how many would be affected by Braude’s proposal.

Scott Stapf, assistant to the president of the Tobacco Institute, said: “The private marketplace left to its own devices can adequately address the needs of nonsmokers. If the patrons of a restaurant desire smoking restrictions, we’ve seen that restaurant operators will comply.”

An official at Los Angeles’ longtime boxing arena, the Olympic Auditorium, said: “Over here, everybody smokes, usually cigars. If the City Council says no more smoking, it’s going to take business away from us.”

Braude said he will introduce his proposal at today’s council meeting where it is expected to be sent to the council’s Public Health, Human Resources and Senior Citizens Committee for public hearings.

Speaking at a City Hall news conference Monday, Braude said he is seeking the additional restrictions because of the success of the law he authored a year and a half ago to regulate smoking in the workplace. The law requires companies with five or more employers to provide, to the maximum extent possible, a smoke-free area for those who do not light up.

Since the law went into effect in April, 1985, the city attorney has obtained compliance without once going to court, said Ted Goldstein of the city attorney’s office.

The city attorney’s office had received 4,207 inquiries about the ordinance through July 31 and had resolved all but 271 of them immediately, Goldstein said. No breakdown was available on how many inquiries were requests for information about the ordinance and how many were complaints.

Of the 271, 231 were settled after the city attorney obtained compliance after formal administrative hearings in City Hall. Most of these stemmed from complaints that employers failed to provide smoke-free workplaces. The remaining 40 cases are under investigation.

Braude said that even with the benefits received by the workplace ordinance, “there remains a serious health threat (to nonsmokers) from side-stream smoke.”

Braude said he did not seek the restrictions on smoking in restaurants in 1984 when he introduced the workplace ordinance because “political forces were too strong” to include restaurants. He said he also did not want to risk passage of the workplace ordinance.

Now, however, given the acceptance of the workplace ordinance and the approval of similar restrictions in other cities, Braude said, “the political climate is right” for expansion of the law to cover restaurants. Bars would be exempt.

Braude predicted that his proposal will face heavy lobbying to defeat it from restaurant and tobacco interests.