Beverly Hills Smoking Law

I would not deny for one moment the health hazards of smoking, whether passive or active, but has it been scientifically verified that the amount of passive smoking in Beverly Hills restaurants is sufficient to put the health of nonsmokers at risk?

Beverly Hills restaurants are well air conditioned; perhaps fewer than half the patrons are smokers, and even they are bound to be eating a good deal of the time. Surely the non-smoking diners’s situation is nothing like being cooped up in an office with a chain smoker, 40 hours a week, every week of the year. At worst, the non-smoking diner gets an occasional whiff of cigarette smoke.

That “whiff” may be annoying, but I doubt it is a health hazard and I suggest that the duration and degree of annoyance is largely determined by how much the non-smoking diner bristles at the mere thought that anyone, anywhere, still dares enjoy a cigarette. The initially rational campaign to dissuade people from smoking increasingly takes on a puritanical fervor.

Again, if not demonstrably hazardous, how intolerable is the occasional “whiff?” If ever there were a case in which an alleged stink lies in the nose of the sniffer, it has to be tobacco smoke, which, after all, long before advertising, enticed hundreds of millions of people the world over with what they must have perceived as its fragrance. Gourmet restaurants everywhere have for decades flourished with patronages consisting of smokers and nonsmokers alike.

I suppose that despite all argument, if one is bent on being and staying annoyed, one will be, but let it not be forgotten that one requisite for reasonably contented life in the big city is tolerance. When I dine out, I must often strive to tune out fellow diners who invade my space with their unmodulated voices, or struggle to avert my eyes from those who sully an elegant atmosphere by sitting down to be served by tuxedoed waiters while they themselves are attired for jogging or gardening. The offenders, naturally, include nonsmokers, and their conduct, if I let it, could easily annoy me as much as my smoking does them--and to the detriment of my digestion and blood pressure, too.

DAVID ZOELLNER

Long Beach