No-Smoking Law Gets Initial OK by County

Citing the “health, safety and welfare of the public,” Orange County supervisors Wednesday gave preliminary approval to a no-smoking law that would apply to private businesses in unincorporated county territory.

The preliminary approval came by a unanimous vote that virtually guarantees final passage next Tuesday. The supervisors decided to exempt firms with nine or fewer employees from the rules, which would take effect Nov. 1. The maximum fine under the law is $100 per day per violation.

The tentative approval came reluctantly and after years of debate over the issue of regulating private companies in a county nationally known for its championing of free enterprise and private property.

“It is not a free market issue” or a “private property issue,” Board of Supervisors Chairman Roger R. Stanton declared Wednesday. Rather, it is a health issue, he said, and “smokers pollute the air for others who want to breathe that clean air.”

Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder said the board would have preferred that “a leadership role be played by the private sector leaders” in the county. But, she said, the efforts of business people were “not adequate to protect the public health, safety and welfare.”

The Orange County Chamber of Commerce, which fought the ordinance, was given nearly two years to come up with its own voluntary program. Supervisors said last month that it had failed to do so. The chamber was invited to help draft the no-smoking law but declined, Stanton said.

The law would not require employers to alter offices physically to accommodate nonsmokers. Rather, “reasonable efforts” to develop and promulgate a no-smoking policy will be sufficient to comply with the ordinance.

The law would require that smoking be banned in conference rooms, auditoriums, restrooms, hallways and elevators, and in at least half the space in cafeterias, lunchrooms and employee lounges.

It would give any employee the right to designate his or her work area a no-smoking zone, and it also notes that “in any dispute arising under the smoking policy, the health concerns of the nonsmoker shall be given precedence.”

County officials said that, based on 1980 figures, there are 684 businesses in the unincorporated area that employ 10 or more, with a total of 36,350 employees. Expanding the law to cover businesses with four or more employees would have added 957 businesses and 5,969 more workers.

Stronger Law Desired

Merrill Matchett, an official of Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights and a representative of a coalition that advised the county on the smoking issue, unsuccessfully urged the supervisors to expand the law to include all businesses.

Wieder said that small businesses “are the main part of this country” and that “it would be an imposition and hardship on them to enforce” a no-smoking law. She also argued that, increasingly, society is shunning the smoker and enforcing its own no-smoking rules even without laws.

Matchett said eight of the 26 cities in the county have passed laws regulating smoking in the workplace.

Jules Kerker, an insurance agent who for years has been leading the fight to persuade the supervisors to crack down on smoking, said Wednesday was “a day that we have long awaited.”

However, he failed in his effort to persuade the board to include in the law a statement that indoor air pollution is an increasing health hazard and that cigarette smoke is a major contributor.