Where There’s Smoke . . . : Fiery Debate Grips Rancho Mirage Over Anti-Puffing Law

As the Rancho Mirage City Council prepares to vote on what would be the state’s toughest no-smoking law, opponents of the ordinance--who include powerful restaurant and hotel owners in this resort community--have stepped up their efforts to snuff out the proposal.

This week, sponsors of the Nabisco Dinah Shore Golf Tournament threatened to take the event and the more than 80,000 people it attracts to a neighboring resort such as La Quinta. Tournament sponsor RJR Nabisco Inc. is the parent company of the nation’s largest cigarette maker, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.

The proposal, which would ban smoking in most public places and the workplace, has shattered old ties between City Hall and the business community, prompted dark predictions of an economic disaster and focused national attention on this community of 8,000 mostly well-heeled residents, who include Frank Sinatra and former President Gerald R. Ford. The council has scheduled its final vote on the measure Thursday.

“We want you to feel some sensitivity toward us,” Dominick Zangari, president of the Rancho Mirage Restaurant & Merchants Assn., pleaded in a meeting with Mayor Jeff Bleaman this week. “My friend, if you pass this ordinance you’ll put everybody in economic jeopardy.”

Anti-smoking activists say the threat to move the golf tournament amounts to “extortion” and vowed to increase pressure for the ordinance.

“They are trying to extort a vote from our City Council,” said Burt Kaplan, leader of a coalition supporting the measure and owner of a self-storage facility here. “If that is the offset to getting a healthier condition in restaurants, we should allow them to take it out of here. Let them be the villain.”

Second Vote Slated

The issue erupted April 16 when the City Council voted 4 to 0, with one member absent, in favor of a first reading of the ordinance, proposed by Councilman Bruce Abrams. Only three people showed up to speak against the ordinance. One of them was a representative of the Tobacco Institute, a lobbying arm of the tobacco industry.

On Thursday, the ordinance is scheduled for a second and final vote and those on both sides promise to fill the City Council chambers with hundreds of their supporters. If approved, the law would become effective in 30 days.

The ordinance goes further than the one that went into effect April 3 in Beverly Hills, which prohibits smoking in restaurants, most retail stores and public meetings. The Rancho Mirage law would also ban smoking in all offices and hotels, except private rooms and bars.

Some business owners here contend that Rancho Mirage’s economy, already limited by the weather, could not survive the economic fallout of a smoking ban.

Like most other Coachella Valley resorts, Rancho Mirage flourishes in winter and slows to a near standstill in summer. Any further reduction in business would be fatal, merchants say. As evidence for their scenario of mass bankruptcies, they point to reports in Beverly Hills of an immediate drop in restaurant business of as much as 30% after the smoking ordinance was imposed there.

Ann Hutchins, vice president of a local branch of the Palm Springs Bank, said her bank has even begun to worry about the $1 million it has lent to local businesses.

“I need their income to support the payment of my loans,” Hutchins said. “Whether you smoke or not is not the issue. The whole problem is the financial impact to this community.”

The proposal has already hurt one hotel here. The California Assn. of Tobacco & Candy Distributors on April 20 canceled reservations for its 1988 winter conference at the Mission Hills Resort Hotel, said Bill Marzonie, the establishment’s general manager.

“This represents 1,000 room-nights for me, or about $200,000,” Marzonie said. “I am a nonsmoker. But when it starts hurting your pocketbook you can become very pragmatic about this issue.”

Now, the Nabisco Dinah Shore tournament, in its 16th year at the Mission Hills Country Club, may leave. The tournament annually attracts about 80,000 people who spend millions of dollars in local hotels, restaurants and shops.

“I think it is reprehensible what Nabisco is doing,” said Councilwoman Anita Richmond. “We should be able to come to our own decisions without threats. . . . My goodness, we named a street here after Dinah Shore. We don’t want to see the tournament go someplace else.”

In a letter dated May 1, Ray Mulligan, executive director of the event, said, “It would be most difficult for us to invite our guests who are members of the tobacco industry to come to our tournament and be subjected to this type of unfair legislation.”

On Monday, Zangari and eight other representatives from the local business community presented Mayor Bleaman with a compromise proposal.

Under the compromise, local restaurant owners would provide no-smoking seating in at least 50% of their dining areas, and require that hosts and hostesses ask all patrons whether they wish to sit in non-smoking or smoking areas, among other things. They would also install physical barriers and ventilation systems to minimize the effects of passive smoke in non-smoking areas.

That may not be enough to satisfy Councilman Abrams.

“I believe in the ordinance and I will vote for the ordinance,” he said. “I think health is the most important issue here. We are dealing with a killer.”

But Bleaman, who has agreed to consider all the information available, suggested that a compromise may be worked out.

“How I vote may not be the way I personally feel,” he said. “We have to sort out the information and do what we believe is in the best interest of Rancho Mirage.”