Critics Dispute Report of Progress in Chamber Push to Limit Smoking

Officials of health groups Tuesday disputed a county report that claims the county Chamber of Commerce has made “measurable progress” in encouraging private businesses to develop voluntary no-smoking plans.

“We have not seen any tangible data” on the effectiveness of the chamber’s efforts to get its members to adopt no-smoking programs, said Roberta Nedry, director of communications of the Orange County unit of the American Cancer Society.

Nedry and representatives of local chapters of the American Heart Assn. and American Lung Assn. also said their groups’ comments on no-smoking programs had not been sought by the chamber.

Last February county supervisors gave the chamber a year to develop and implement a voluntary program. They warned that if voluntary programs do not work they will pass a law regulating smoking in the workplace in unincorporated areas.

“I don’t think progress is sufficient at this point,” Supervisor Roger R. Stanton said Tuesday. “I think they’ll have to accelerate their efforts in the next six months.”

“We are in complete support of the chamber’s efforts, so long as something is happening and something measurable is going on,” Nedry said after the board meeting. “We are concerned, of course, with protecting the nonsmokers’ rights . . . and ensuring some sort of fair policy is adopted.”

Supervisors Stanton, Bruce Nestande and Thomas F. Riley said that if the chamber’s programs are not successful, they will support mandatory controls. But since the chamber had been given a year to implement its plan, it would be wrong to call a halt to its efforts after only six months, they said.

Nestande said any new county law would apply mainly to southern Orange County, which has most of the county’s unincorporated territory. In that region, 80% of the businesses have fewer than 10 employees and probably would be exempt from the effects of any law, he said.

Efforts Can Affect Cities

The chamber has members throughout the county, Nestande said, and its efforts can apply to the county’s 26 cities as well as its unincorporated areas.

“Let’s let the chamber go forward and see if they can motivate” businesses to come up with voluntary plans “and keep this positive momentum going,” Nestande said.

A county administrative office report released last week said the chamber was making “measurable progress” in encouraging voluntary no-smoking plans.

The report cited as evidence articles in two editions of the chamber’s newsletter on no-smoking programs, articles in three issues of a monthly business newspaper and a June 5 seminar on smoking in the workplace that was attended by more than 100 representatives of 87 businesses.

But Jules Kerker, an anti-smoking activist who has testified often before the supervisors on the issue, said the CAO report was riddled with “governmental gobbledygook.”

There are nearly 8,000 businesses in Orange County, but only 87 sent representatives to the workshop, he said.

“This is measurable progress?” Kerker said. “A snail on a journey of a mile, after traversing one inch, has also made measurable progress.”

The board’s advisory committee on the issue, which includes Kerker and representatives of the chamber, health groups and county supervisors, last met in April, Kerker said. “On what basis is the CAO reporting measurable progress in the county?” he asked.

No Merit to Complaints

“I share the view that their progress to date has some great limitations,” Stanton said. But he said that if the chamber fails after a year to develop a no-smoking plan, opponents of a law on the issue would have no basis to complain if the supervisors enact an ordinance.

The president of the county chamber, Lucien Truhill, said that while the business group has “had a slow start, it’s a new area for us.”

“Even if business fails to respond to this the way we hope to, this educational period has been very constructive,” Truhill said.

The supervisors last February asked the county administrative office to compare the chamber’s voluntary plan to mandatory programs adopted in some of Orange County’s cities, but no comparison was provided Tuesday.

Nestande said that when the smoking issue comes back before the board in six months, he wants the comparison and wants to know how many citations have been issued in cities with no-smoking laws.

Although the supervisors warned of an ordinance if the voluntary programs don’t work, Nedry noted that the board has never spelled out its definition of success.

She also urged the county to publicize its hot line for workers complaining about cigarette smoke in the workplace. The county set up the special telephone line--(714) 834-5512--in June, 1985, when it tightened restrictions on smoking in buildings owned or leased by the county.

Although it was supposed to help the public, too, county officials said it had not been publicized because it was intended mainly for county workers inquiring about the policy on smoking in their workplaces.

Between Oct. 1 and June 30 there were 91 calls to the hot line.