They’re Burning on First Day of Ban : Smokers Down and Out in Beverly Hills

Surrounded by empty tables, a lone figure sat hunched against the morning chill on the outdoor patio at Cafe Casino in Beverly Hills. Coat collar turned up against the wind and rain, she held a cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

“How do I like the new smoking ordinance? Well, what do you think? I’m out here, and they’re in there,” said the woman, nodding toward the restaurant, crowded with nonsmoking patrons.

The woman, who refused to give her name (“We smokers aren’t too popular, you know”) was one of many smokers displaced by the new anti-smoking ordinance that took effect in Beverly Hills on Friday.

Similar scenes were repeated over and over again--from the ritzy cafes on Rodeo Drive, to the trendy establishments on La Cienega’s Restaurant Row, to the coffee shops along Wilshire Boulevard--as Beverly Hills became the second city in the nation to ban smoking in its 125 restaurants and in most public places.

Under the landmark law, only bars, restaurants in the city’s 18 hotels, private banquet rooms and outside dining areas are exempt.

Throughout the day, smokers--who found they could not do much puffing--instead did a lot of huffing about the ordinance.

A few brave individuals took semi-militant stands, lighting up, only to be confronted by fellow patrons and waitresses telling them politely to take their cigarettes elsewhere. Most opted to snuff them out and finish their meals--but not before they let everyone around them know what they thought of the law.

Typical of the reaction was that of a expensively dressed woman who sat down at a table in the cafe at the Neiman-Marcus department store and took out a cigarette. The waitress told her there was no smoking. Throwing the cigarette pack on the table, the woman asked, “Well, if we can’t smoke, how about banning these vulgarly dressed people as well?”

Defection to L.A. Planned

A smoker for 20 years, the woman, who would not give her name, said she eats out several times a week. “If I’m going to pay $100 for a meal, I’ll go to Los Angeles where I can enjoy myself,” she said.

The only reported incident occurred at 1:10 a.m. Friday at the Beverly Hills Cafe when a patron was told not to smoke.

“We finally called police because he wouldn’t shut up and was bothering everybody yelling very loudly and abusively about his rights as a smoker,” said manager Tony Mendola. “I hope it’s not going to be like this all the time.”

Beverly Hills Police Lt. Bill Hunt said that the patron left the cafe when a patrolman arrived and that he was not arrested. Aside from that incident, the police received only a handful of calls, and those were not complaints, but requests for information about the law.

There was much confusion throughout the day as restaurant owners and patrons alike tried to grasp the finer points of the law: Can you smoke in a bar with food? Can you smoke in the restroom? Who has to tell the smoker to quit, the owner or the other patrons?

The Beverly Hills Restaurant Assn., which calls the law vague and ambiguous, lost its bid Thursday to get a temporary court order halting implementation of the ordinance.

However, the group’s acting director, Rudy Cole, said Friday that they will proceed with a lawsuit that charges that the ordinance is unconstitutional and discriminatory and will be disastrous to business. The group also will ask the City Council on Tuesday to delay implementation of the law until patrons and owners can be educated, he said.

Different restaurants had different interpretations of the law.

At the Bistro Garden on Canon Drive, for example, maitre d’ Christopher Niklas concluded that “we’re a al fresco restaurant, not an enclosed restaurant,” and thus the ordinance does not apply.

Smoking Freely

No signs were posted at the Bistro Garden, and patrons smoked freely, both in the outdoor garden and in the interior of the building, where half the customers dine in walled, ceiling rooms that to many observers looked decidedly indoors. A waiter explained: “They aren’t really indoors because the doors are open.”

At the Bistro, a trendy establishment operating under the same ownership a block up the street, maitre ‘d Casper, who eschews a surname, concluded that the ordinance applies to the entire restaurant, including the bar.

Although no signs were posted at the Bistro, Casper said some were on the way, and until they arrive, he will advise patrons that they cannot smoke while dining.

“I’ve had some cancellations because of it,” he said. “I’ve got one guy smoking in the men’s room, another outside.”

The man outside was Giles Mead, 59, former director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History who said he would practice abstinence inside later when a companion showed up for lunch.

“This whole thing is unwarranted,” he said. “It’s another version of extremism. I can live with it, but I don’t like it.”

At The Saloon, a relatively new restaurant on Little Santa Monica Boulevard, owner Joanne Le Bouvier concluded that almost half the 130 or so seats were in areas that were part of the bar, so smoking will be allowed there.

Two dark, hard-to-read signs near the top of the large doorway to the main dining room indicated that “No Smoking” was allowed in there, but Le Bouvier said she had no intention of asking anyone in there to put out a cigarette unless another patron complained. As of Friday evening, none had.

Loss of Customers Claimed

Le Bouvier said the ordinance was costing her a lot of customers.

“The Monday night before the whole thing hit television, we served 92 dinners,” she said. “The following Monday, we served six. . . . Overall, we’ve lost 40% to 45% of our business--at a time when we were just starting to get established, just starting to get into the black.”

Le Bouvier said that when she and her husband opened the restaurant four months ago, “we put every dime we had into this place.”

“I’m a little angry,” she said. “I’m a lot scared.”

The proprietors of both the Jacopo Pizzaria and La Famiglia, Barry Fogel and Joe Patti, respectively, are on the restaurant association board. But both they and the customers of their restaurants, which are about a block away, appeared good humored during the lunch hour Friday.

Independent television producer James Komack, a La Famiglia regular, stormed into the restaurant at 435 N. Canon Drive, sputtering, “Smokers, ho.” With that he shoved three dark cigarettes in his mouth as Patti and other customers laughed. Komack quickly put the cigarettes back in their pack and did not light up, although he said that before the ordinance was passed he would have done so--unless he perceived his smoking was offensive to other patrons.

Another male customer nearby placed a pack of Pall Malls conspicuously on his table an left them there throughout lunch. “I’m not much of a smoker. I just put them there to kid Joe (Patti),” he said.

Proprietor Patti called attention to ashtrays that remained on all the tables at La Famiglia. “Know why they’re still there?” he asked. “We’re leaving them as souvenirs.”

Patti and Fogel, proprietor of Jacopo’s, estimated that about 30% of their patrons would normally be smoking.

‘100% Overkill’

Even though he is a nonsmoker, Fogel said he considers the ordinance “100% overkill.” Like Patti, he said Friday was “too early” to judge the ordinance’s impact on business, especially since his restaurant does not accept reservations.

Fogel said his mother is a two-pack-a-day smoker and that on her birthday he will not be able to celebrate with her at a Beverly Hills restaurant. “I’ll have to take her to Los Angeles,” he said, adding with a shrug: “It’s not very far anyway.”

At the Beverly Wilshire’s Hideaway restaurant, Suzanne Raphael nursed a drink and a cigarette as she waited for a lunch table. Because the city’s 18 hotel restaurants are exempted from the ordinance, the Hideaway was one of the only games in town.

“Why do you think I’m sitting here in a hotel in the middle of the afternoon?” Raphael, a supervisor at the May Co., demanded. “I’ve canceled two dinner reservations this week, and all my friends have also. I refuse to go somewhere where you can’t even light up a cigarette. They’ve taken enough away already.”

At the Beverly Hills Hotel’s exclusive Polo Lounge, Delano Barboza smoked as he waited for a lunch table.

“I’m not going to go in any restaurant where I can’t eat and relax afterward,” he shrugged. “I tell you, if there’s any restaurant that asked me to extinguish my cigarette, I’d probably get up and leave. That’s going a little far, don’t you think?”

But the expected rush of nicotine-dependent lunchers, for the most part, never materialized at the city’s hotel restaurants.

“If today is an example, our normal Friday business is down,” said Max Baril, managing director of the Beverly Rodeo who supported the no-smoking ordinance.

‘No Longer in Style’

“The bottom line is, I feel that smoking is no longer in style in America,” he said. “Smoking is out, and we should realize it.”

The Polo Lounge and the Hideaway were packed over the lunch hour and late into the afternoon. But then, explained Polo maitre d’hotel Pasquale Pavone, they always are.

“We should give it at least a week before we can say,” he said. “Today we are busy, but we’re busy every Friday. Maybe next week, we will know.”

Tony Hernandez, who tends bar at the Hideaway, said patrons were anxious about the ordinance anyway. “We had a lot of people coming in here this morning, saying, ‘Can I smoke? Can I smoke?’ I say, ‘Sure you can smoke, as long as you smoke the legal stuff.’ ”

At Larry Parker’s diner, known for its all-night chow and occasionally smoke-filled atmosphere, the smoking ordinance had taken on the dimensions of a family war.

Parker opposed the ordinance; his wife and co-manager, Debbie, campaigned for it.

On Friday, they posted a sign atop their sidewalk eating area--”Smoking and Eating are Permitted on This Patio”--and ordered 700 ashtrays to hand out as souvenirs for complaining patrons.

“I told her she really wasn’t in touch with reality,” Parker said of his wife’s views. “She’s very idealistic. I have to sit there and write the checks out. We’re having a baby, we’re buying a house, what if we lose 20%?” Said Debbie: “I’m ecstatic. I think it’s fantastic!”

Russ Afrasiabi and Ray Loghadi were two Parker patrons asked to partake of the free ashtrays outside. They were less than pleased.

“This is stupid,” Loghadi, a native of Iran, said. “You cannot call this freedom in this country, when they don’t allow people to do with their own life as they want to do. They either have to change this law or change the name of this country. Because they don’t belong together.”

Another patron, Achim Schuller, a West German tourist, shook his head. “I’m confused. Yesterday I could smoke. Now I can’t,” he said. “I’m happy we have nothing like this at home. I like to enjoy a cigarette. But I would come back here; it is a nice town.” Smokers eating on or near La Cienega Boulevard’s famed Restaurant Row--part of which is in Beverly Hills and part in Los Angeles--were an unhappy lot.

Businessman Donald Royes vowed never to eat again at Nibblers, a busy restaurant with a large lunch trade just inside the Beverly Hills border.

“The only reason I am eating here today,” Royes said, “is that I had agreed to meet my friend here far in advance. To isolate us from nonsmokers is one thing, to tell us we can’t smoke is something else. I will just have to find restaurants in Los Angeles.”

‘Bad Guy With Horns’

Patrons eating at the bar did not seem to mind. Tony Palk said he would go elsewhere to eat if he could not smoke during lunch. “I guess I am the bad guy with horns,” he said.

Palk’s wife, Elaine, and another companion, Gary Sheperd, had joined him even though they are nonsmokers. “I love the new ordinance,” Sheperd said. “I must admit I’m probably tougher on smokers because I gave up smoking last New Year’s Day.”

Hoping to take advantage of any smoker unhappiness was Alan Smith, co-owner of Smith Bros. Fish Shanty, a Los Angeles restaurant a block away from the Beverly Hills border. The restaurant had been advertising for a few weeks that it had smoking and nonsmoking sections.

“Our business went up at night,” Smith said. “But it really is down today (for lunch Friday). Maybe everyone went to eat in Beverly Hills to see if there was any action.”

Times staff writers Jerry Cohen, Kenneth J. Fanucchi and Kim Murphy contributed to this story. BEVERLY HILLS’ SMOKING LAW

Beverly Hills’ smoking ordinance, which took effect Friday, bans smoking in most restaurants, at public meetings and in all stores. Taverns and bars are exempt, as are hotel restaurants and private banquet rooms.

The responsibilities of various parties under the law:

Restaurant owners: Restaurateurs are required to post “no-smoking” signs so that they are visible to customers. The owner’s liability apparently ends with the posting. Fines of up to $500 can be levied for refusing to post signs.

Nonsmokers: If someone lights up a cigarette and you do not like it, it is your responsibility to remind them of the law or to file a complaint with the police.

Smokers: Under the law you cannot smoke in nonsmoking areas. Fine for a first offense is $100, $200 for the second offense and $500 for a third offense.