Effort to Voluntarily Limit Smoking in Workplaces Gains, Report Says

The Orange County Chamber of Commerce, which fought to prevent mandatory no-smoking rules in businesses, is making “measurable progress” in encouraging voluntary no-smoking plans, said a report issued Friday.

But an official of the Orange County chapter of the American Heart Assn. said Friday that the progress hasn’t been swift enough.

The county Administrative Office report to the Board of Supervisors said that it found a “sense of momentum” in the chamber’s efforts to encourage businesses in unincorporated county areas to voluntarily regulate smoking.

The report, which the supervisors will consider next week, said the chamber had included articles on no-smoking programs in two editions of its newsletter and in three issues of a monthly business newspaper. And on June 5, representatives of 87 businesses attended a four-hour seminar, presented by the chamber, on smoking in the workplace.

The report said all of that showed that “the chamber is encouraging voluntary self-regulation of smoking in the private sector workplace.

However, the number of companies persuaded to implement no-smoking rules isn’t known. The chamber plans to take a survey in September.

Restrictions Tightened

In June, 1985, the county tightened restrictions on smoking in buildings owned or leased by the county and promised to start enforcing a long-ignored law passed in 1975 requiring no-smoking sections in restaurants seating 50 or more people.

The supervisors also decided 14 months ago, after several stormy public hearings, not to impose mandatory controls on businesses but to let the chamber devise a voluntary program.

The board also called for a six-month progress report and warned that if the voluntary program did not work controls would be imposed.

Dale Bonifield, public relations director of the county American Heart Assn. chapter, said his group and others will ask the supervisors Tuesday to extend the chamber’s program for two months rather than six.

“Certainly we would support a voluntary ordinance if it can be shown to work, and we would like to give it a chance to work,” Bonifield said. “There’s no doubt about that. But as far as we can see, the monitoring process has not been effective enough to make the voluntary ordinance workable.”

Rights of Nonsmokers

The association has joined with local chapters of the American Cancer Society, American Lung Assn. and Californians for Non-Smokers Rights to form a coalition that Bonifield said “tries to promote and help out individuals that are interested in protecting the rights of nonsmokers.”

Bonifield also said the county hasn’t publicized its telephone number for information about no-smoking programs in the workplace. (The number is (714) 834-5512.)

But Molly Brenner, who coordinates the health education and smoking program in the county Health Care Agency, said the county has not “made any particular effort to publicize the smoking hot line because the intent was not to provide that kind of information” to the public.

From Oct. 1 through June 30 there were 91 calls to the number, she said.