Cancer Warnings to Nonsmokers : Tobacco Notices to Be Posted

Thousands of signs warning nonsmokers that second-hand tobacco smoke can cause cancer will begin appearing Saturday in restaurants, bars and hotels throughout the state as a result of Proposition 65, the anti-toxics initiative.

The notices, which will be posted near the entrances of establishments and workplaces where smoking is allowed, are believed to be the first government-required health warnings to alert the public to the hazards of breathing secondary smoke.

The state-approved placards will read: “Warning: This Facility Permits Smoking and Tobacco Smoke Is Known to the State of California to Cause Cancer.”

“We are printing signs by the thousands and shipping them off to our members all over the state,” said Jo Linda Thompson, a spokeswoman for the California Restaurant Assn. “We’ve been printing and mailing all week long.”

State Health and Welfare Undersecretary Thomas E. Warriner, who is overseeing the implementation of Proposition 65, said he expects broad compliance from restaurants, hotels and businesses that allow smoking on their premises. Some firms, he said, may simply prohibit smoking altogether as a way of avoiding the warning requirement.

“A company might decide now is a good time to go nonsmoking,” Warriner said.

Proposition 65, which was overwhelmingly approved by the voters in 1986, was primarily intended to ensure that Californians can drink water that is free from contamination by toxic chemicals. However, the initiative was written broadly enough to cover a wide range of other situations in which people are exposed to hazardous substances.

Under the law, businesses that have 10 or more employees must provide “clear and reasonable” warnings if they expose anyone, including their own employees, to a “significant risk” from chemicals known to cause cancer or birth defects.

A company that violates the law can be fined as much as $2,500 a day for each case of an illegal exposure. And, under the initiative’s “bounty hunter” provision, any member of the public can bring an action alleging a violation of the law and receive a portion of any fines that are levied.

In the case of tobacco smoke, this means that anti-smoking activists will have a powerful new tool to use in their efforts to reduce the public’s exposure to second-hand smoke--and persuade people to stop smoking.

“Warnings like this educate people that there is a health risk and create an incentive to restaurants and other establishments to provide people with a smoke-free environment,” said Jim Shultz, a spokesman for Consumers Union, which supported the initiative. “Even if people won’t stop smoking for their own health, they may think twice when they realize it’s affecting their children and their loved ones.”

Staff writer Ginger Thompson in Los Angeles contributed to this story.