Beverly Hills Tentatively OKs Scaled-Down Smoking Law

Nearly two years after it passed one of the toughest smoking ordinances in the nation, the Beverly Hills City Council has heeded restaurateurs’ protests and adopted a substantially scaled-down law that exempts existing restaurants from strict ventilation requirements and allows smoking in 40% of dining areas.

Under the revised ordinance, which requires a second reading before becoming law, only restaurants that open after Jan. 1 must install the ventilation systems. In addition, new restaurants can avoid the systems if they install walls separating smoking and nonsmoking areas and if the sections have separate air sources.

The ordinance does not affect bars, lounges, private banquet rooms or restaurants in hotels.

The proposed law, which was unanimously passed Tuesday, represents a victory for restaurant owners who complained that the ventilation systems were expensive and cumbersome. The old law requiring the systems was passed in July, 1987, after restaurant owners protested a highly publicized ban on all smoking in restaurants with more than 50 seats.

Walt Bilofsky, president of Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, said he is disappointed that existing restaurants will not be required to install ventilation systems, but he added that he is pleased that the minimum space for nonsmoking sections was increased from 50% to 60% of dining areas.

“Obviously, a complete prohibition on smoking would have been the best thing for nonsmokers,” Bilofsky said, “but all the parties have approached the negotiations over this 60% separation in a constructive spirit. Of all the situations where cities and counties in California have enacted smoking laws, restaurants have been the most difficult because restaurants want to accommodate smoking customers. People like to smoke after dinner.”

Bob Spivak, president of the Beverly Hills Restaurant Assn., said the ventilation systems would have cost between $7,000 and $25,000 to install. The city issued ventilation standards in September, 1987, that would have required “air curtains” to keep smoke from entering nonsmoking sections in large restaurants that did not have walls separating smoking and nonsmoking areas.

Approved ventilation systems were to have been completed and working by June 15, 1988, but none were installed because the restaurant group persuaded the City Council to grant a series of extensions.

“I think this is a very fair and equitable (ordinance) and it’s been a long time in coming, but I think it’s workable,” Councilwoman Vicki Reynolds said.