Thousand Oaks Moves to Restrict Smoking

Joining a statewide trend, the Thousand Oaks City Council has agreed to impose severe restrictions on smoking in public places, but postponed passage of an ordinance until the city attorney works out details of provisions covering workplaces and restaurants.

The council instructed City Atty. Mark Sellers to develop a compromise on workplace provisions between those called for by an anti-smoking group and his own less stringent proposal.

Council members voted 3 to 1 Tuesday night for a “conceptual” motion agreeing that such an ordinance is needed, but gave Sellers until next month to come up with new language for some sections.

So far, about 100 California cities have passed smoking regulations of some kind, including Beverly Hills, which recently banned all smoking in restaurants. The Los Angeles City Council has given preliminary approval to a measure that would require owners to forbid smoking in at least half of the seats in restaurants, and is considering restrictions on smoking in retail stores, schools, sports arenas, public transportation terminals, libraries and museums.

Appeal Fails

The California Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously refused to hear a challenge to the Beverly Hills ordinance, but said opponents still can launch a new appeal.

The Thousand Oaks ordinance basically would ban smoking in all enclosed areas ordinarily used by the public, including stores, shopping malls, public transportation, government buildings and businesses. Fines for violators would range from $25 to $100.

Smoking would be permitted in bars and hotel rooms. Restaurants would be required to forbid smoking in at least half of their dining area.

Sellers had proposed exempting restaurants with less than 500 square feet of dining space, to spare “small sandwich-stand type of restaurants” too small to have non-smoking sections. Council members, expressing concern that there might be disagreements over the definition of “dining space,” suggested that he look into an exemption based on the number of seats in the restaurant.

The no-smoking proposal is being pushed by a coalition of Ventura County health groups, including the Ventura County Medical Society and the county chapters of the American Lung Assn., the American Heart Assn. and the American Cancer Society.

Supporters in Audience

Twenty-five people appeared before the council Tuesday night to comment on the proposal, with 22 of them--mostly members of the coalition, many of them physicians or other medical professionals--urging passage of the restrictions.

Two smokers protested the proposal as an infringement on their rights, one of them threatening to shop only in other cities if the ordinance is enacted. The other speaker said the council should be more concerned with outdoor air pollution.

The coalition, patterned after similar groups that have brought about anti-smoking laws in Northern California, has distributed a sample ordinance to Ventura County’s 10 cities and to the county Board of Supervisors.

The group was partly successful in Simi Valley, where the City Council last week voted to prohibit smoking in most public places--including elevators, buses, restrooms, government buildings and hospitals--and to require that half of the seats in restaurants be reserved for nonsmokers. Exceptions were made for bars, homes, hotel rooms, tobacco shops and businesses smaller than 1,500 square feet.

After protests from Simi Valley businesses, administrators and the Chamber of Commerce, however, the council declined to directly ban smoking in non-public working areas as the coalition had proposed. Instead, the measure allows employers to prohibit smoking on the job, with the provision that employees who disobey company rules can be fined between $100 and $500 by the city.

Differences in Measures

The major difference between the Thousand Oaks ordinance proposed by the coalition and the alternative drawn up by Sellers is in their rules for non-public workplaces. The coalition proposal would have given employers 90 days to distribute to employees a written policy banning smoking in the area of any non-smoking employee who requested a smoke-free environment, enforceable by city fines up to $500.

Council members said they were concerned that the coalition’s proposal might enable one non-smoking employee to force large changes on a business employing many smokers.

But they said they wanted a policy stricter than the city attorney’s proposal, which would have required employers to draw up a smoking policy within 120 days, but did not specify the content or impose penalties.

The council instructed Sellers to come up with alternative provisions that would apply to private workplaces with five or more employees.

Wants Public Vote

Councilman Lee Laxdal argued that to take the other measures but exempt workplaces would not solve the problem of health injury from second-hand smoke because of the amount of time most people spend at work.

Laxdal cast the one vote against the motion, although he said he does not oppose an anti-smoking ordinance. He contended that such sweeping limits on previously unregulated behavior should be imposed by the voters, not the council, and suggested that the council place the issue on the ballot in the next municipal election. He received no support.

His negative vote was a symbolic protest against “the government tromping all over our rights,” he said. But Laxdal said he will vote for the final ordinance, appearing to assure that it will pass unanimously.