Does Things in Big Way : Ex-Puffer Lights Up an Anti-Smoking Message

Take it from William E. Bloomfield Sr.

He knows how tough it is to quit smoking. He did it 25 times or so before finally giving cigarettes the permanent heave-ho in 1962 at the age of 49. And he figures that he’d have been in the grave years ago if he hadn’t quit.

But not everyone is getting the message on smoking, Bloomfield said. So the anti-smoking crusader put in it lights Thursday. Big lights. In fact, the message spans a 48-by-12-foot billboard atop of the YWCA on little Santa Monica Boulevard in Westwood.

The grim message is that one American dies from the effects of smoking every 97 seconds, about 320,000 a year.

Bloomfield’s unusual electronic billboard--erected with the cooperation of the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Assn. and the American Lung Assn.--ticks off the carnage, keeping a running count on its half-ton digital display.

“I want to do what I can to get even a few people to quit, or at least think about it,” said Bloomfield, chairman and founder of WEB Service Co. of Redondo Beach. WEB manages a network of coin-operated washers and dryers in apartments and colleges from Hawaii to Florida.

“I’ve been a very active anti-smoker,” Bloomfield said.

He has banned smoking at all 23 company offices, he encourages employees and members of his Rotary Club to give up the habit during the Great American Smoke Out each year and he donates money to groups such as Americans for Non-Smokers’ Rights, which has battled to stop smoking on airliners.

Such efforts nationwide are having some effect. Figures released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control show that the percentage of American adults lighting up dropped nearly 4% since 1985 to about 26.5% from about 30.4%.

Bloomfield developed the idea for the electronic billboard after hearing of a similar project in Australia.

“He’s a most unusual and incredibly determined individual,” said Joseph Hartnett, a volunteer communications specialist with the American Cancer Society who worked on the project. “He had some difficulty convincing everyone (of the concept). He said he wanted to display the real costs of smoking.”

So at 9 a.m. Thursday, Bloomfield’s sign was unveiled at number 222,137, the estimated death count so far this year from smoking-related diseases and conditions. At midnight, New Year’s Eve, the sign will be set back to zero, and begin its sobering count again.

Bloomfield, who at age 74 still jogs two miles three times a week, wouldn’t discuss the cost of his latest effort, saying only, “Whatever the cost, it all seems to be worth it.”

Ed Disbrow, of the advertising firm Linnell & Assoc., who designed the billboard for Bloomfield, said it cost about $25,000 to build the sign. Display space would normally cost an additional $2,000 to $3,000 a month, he said. But Bloomfield’s company owns the building, so there is no direct cost.