Council Puts Off Vote on Added Limits for Smoking

Opponents of a far-reaching expansion of Los Angeles’ laws regulating smoking won a delay Tuesday on a measure that would limit smoking in restaurants, stores, sporting arenas and many other indoor public places.

City Councilman Marvin Braude predicted, however, that his measure for tighter controls on smoking--including mandatory no-smoking areas in Los Angeles restaurants--will ultimately receive approval but that “it’s going to be squeaky.”

The City Council agreed to postpone action until April 15 at the request of Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, author of a less restrictive alternative proposal. The decision to delay came after long, emotional testimony from both sides.

Nationwide Crusade

The Los Angeles proposal occurs with the nationwide anti-smoking crusade in full swing. The anti-smokers were given a big push last year by Surgeon General C. Everett Koop’s warning that tobacco smoking is dangerous not only to smokers but to everyone who inhales the environmental “side-stream” smoke.

New York state health officials recently began enforcing a variety of new smoking regulations, and the Beverly Hills City Council recently imposed a ban on smoking in restaurants.

Los Angeles became in 1983 the 30th California jurisdiction to regulate smoking in the workplace. It would be the 98th city in the country to regulate smoking in restaurants, according to Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights.

Several physicians and other anti-smoking activists--including a group of children--called on the council to reaffirm its role in the anti-smoking crusade.

On the other side, restaurateurs, owners of bowling emporiums and smokers argued that most businesses already cater to the desires of customers. Freedom of choice--for business operators and their customers--is the crucial issue, they said.

Three competing anti-smoking measures are being considered. Most of the attention focused on Braude’s proposal, which would require restaurants with more than 50 seats to set aside at least half of them in a no-smoking area. Saloons would be exempt.

In addition, outright bans would be imposed in the public areas of most stores and indoor sports arenas. Smoking would also be prohibited in areas normally occupied by children in child-care facilities and private schools and in indoor service lines in city government buildings and such business places as banks.

Smoking would also be unlawful in the public areas of libraries, museums and art galleries, although it already is prohibited by policy in most of these facilities.

Councilman Ernani Bernardi has proposed a more aggressive measure: a complete ban on smoking in restaurants, similar to the Beverly Hills ordinance.

Flores’ proposal would require restaurants to post signs advising customers of their smoking policies--an idea criticized by Braude as “essentially the position of the tobacco industry.” Flores said she wanted the delay because a report produced by the Health and Safety Committee that she chairs contained discrepancies from her recollection of the committee meetings.

In making his proposal, Braude cited the success of earlier anti-smoking ordinances--a 1975 ban of smoking in elevators, a 1977 ban on smoking in food markets and the 1983 law requiring workplace segregation of smokers and nonsmokers.

Benefits Cited

Despite predictions that these ordinances would create enforcement problems, all have proved relatively painless and greatly beneficial to “the rights of nonsmokers,” Braude said.

Among Braude’s allies were a group called Kids Against Public Smoking. Thirteen-year-old Sharon Cohen called smoking “slow-motion suicide” and its effect on others “slow-motion murder.”

Gerald Breitbart, spokesman for the California Restaurant Assn., said most of the group’s 1,000 Los Angeles restaurants already provide nonsmoking areas “by customer demand.”

Several owners of bowling centers asked for exemptions, noting that many of their patrons smoke. “If we are considered sporting arenas, our bowlers will go outside of L.A. to bowl,” said Janey Siebenforcher, manager of the Brunswick Matador Bowl in Northridge. Many bowling alleys, responding to customers’ complaints, have already installed air-conditioning and purifying systems, industry spokesmen said.