Law Greeted With Huffing, Puffing, Mostly Rejoicing

For some nonsmokers, it was a day of celebration.

And at small businesses, company managers pointed with pride to small rooms set aside for smokers where tiny fans labored to clear unwanted cigarette smoke.

Throughout Orange County, smokers and nonsmokers expressed mixed emotions after the Board of Supervisors adopted an ordinance Tuesday to regulate smoking in private businesses employing at least 10 people. The ordinance applies only in unincorporated territories.

“I love it,” shouted Thea Errickson, a nonsmoker and an assistant manager of a Levitz furniture store in Laguna Hills, when she heard the news. “I hope they really enforce it.”

Many companies had anticipated passage of the ordinance, said David McAdam, editor of the Saddleback Valley News in Mission Viejo. In January, the publishing company adopted a no-smoking policy for its 120 employees and set aside a smoking room with a “high-velocity bathroom fan” and special filter, McAdam said.

“We had gotten a lot of complaints from nonsmokers who were concerned about their work environment,” McAdam said.

At larger corporations, the dividing line between smokers and those who want a smoke-free work environment has usually meant cafeterias divided into “smoking” and “nonsmoking” areas.

“We’ve designated a good portion of the cafeteria as smoking and nonsmoking,” said a spokesman for Unisys, the giant computer firm forged from the merger of Burroughs and Sperry. Unisys operates a design and manufacturing facility with 1,400 employees in Mission Viejo.

In anticipation of the ordinance, Unisys already had adopted its own smoking regulations, which declare open areas like offices, hallways and conference rooms smoke-free zones.

In addition, employees who smoke are offered voluntary programs to help them quit, part of the company’s commitment for a “safe and healthful” workplace, the spokesman said.

Other companies said news media concentration on the no-smoking issue made Tuesday passage of the county ordinance less than surprising.

But reaction was varied, especially among the nonsmokers.

Sal Pisani, a nonsmoker who works with Errickson selling furniture at the Levitz store, said the ordinance is too harsh.

“I don’t think that is necessary,” said Pisani. “In businesses like this I have more of a choice to walk out if the smoke bothers me. The law is more important, I think, in restaurants or elevators. There I don’t have as much of a choice.”

Employers will be fined $100 per day per violation under the new law, which goes into effect Nov. 1.

Some employees foresaw battles ahead at companies owned or managed by heavy smokers. An office employee at a Capistrano Beach business said most of the employees who smoke are considerate and leave the office area have a cigarette. “But my boss, that’s another matter,” she said.

The new ordinance may have an added benefit, some smokers said.

John Graham, an agent at Seven Gables Real Estate in Tustin, said he has participated sporadically in the company’s year-old anti-smoking campaign. The program has seemed “an eternity,” Graham said. But now with the new no-smoking ordinance in effect, “I’m really going to try to stop smoking,” he said.

Graham added, however, that county government should not impose smoking laws. Monitoring smoking should be voluntary, he said.

But Pat Hadley, another real estate agent in the same company, said an anti-smoking policy has made the office a more pleasant place to work. She said she doubted that all businesses would impose such policies voluntarily.

Marlene Shaw, a nonsmoking legal secretary for a Laguna Hills health care facility, agreed with county supervisors, who found that the rights of nonsmokers should exceed those of smokers.

“We are more sensitive to smoke. Although both smokers and nonsmokers have rights, I think that nonsmokers should have more rights because nicotine is cancer-causing,” Shaw said.

Times staff writers Sandra Crockett and Leonel Sanchez contributed to this story.