Small-Business Owners Breathe Easier : Tougher Anti-Smoking Plan Is Scrapped

Siding with small-business owners concerned about their livelihoods, a San Diego City Council committee killed a proposal Wednesday to toughen anti-smoking regulations governing workplaces, restaurants and other public sites. The move came despite emphatic expert testimony about the hazards of second-hand smoke.

In a 3-0 vote, the council’s Public Services and Safety Committee rejected language that would have prohibited smoking in shared work spaces and would have required all but the smallest city restaurants to reserve half of their seats for nonsmokers.

1982 Rules Still Stand

The vote leaves the city’s 1982 smoking ordinance as the local statute. That legislation requires restaurant owners to set aside sufficient nonsmoking seats to meet demand and instructs employers to provide nonsmoking areas “to the maximum extent possible” without incurring the expense of physical modifications.

San Diego became the 10th municipality in the county to consider and reject legislation modeled on the stringent anti-smoking ordinance for unincorporated areas that was approved by county supervisors last July.

No municipality has adopted the language, and Robert Ottilie--an attorney for the coalition of small-business owners that has been opposing the tightened restrictions--predicted that his group will mount a campaign to weaken the county rules.

Council members Bruce Henderson, Gloria McColl and Judy McCarty voted to table the matter. Councilman Ron Roberts, who favored a modified version of the recommendations, left the hearing before a vote was taken. The committee’s fifth member, Councilman Wes Pratt, was absent for the discussion.

“I don’t think you have the right to smoke and injure another person,” McCarty said. But she added that it is “foolhardy for government to intrude itself into this,” by “placing one citizen’s moral values over another’s.”

McColl, a nonsmoker who said she is allergic to cigarette smoke, noted that “it’s the small business that’s really being hurt” by tougher smoking regulations.

‘Vague, Ambiguous’ Ordinance

But J. William Cox, chief administrator of the county Department of Health Services, said the city’s “vague and ambiguous” ordinance defies enforcement because its terms lend themselves to interpretation by those who must implement them. The regulations also require workers or customers to bring complaints and testify about violations.

Cox and other proponents of tighter controls told the committee that the rules would protect public health by lessening the nonsmokers’ exposure to second-hand or “sidestream” smoke exhaled by the 25% of the public that lights up.

Cox cited the 1986 report by U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop that found sidestream smoke to be a cause of diseases, including lung cancer.

“The danger from second-hand cigarette smoke is far greater to occupiers of these public buildings than all the asbestos in all the schools and all the public buildings throughout the United States,” he said.

Opponents of the amended ordinance, including members of the Coalition Advocating Individual Rights, claimed that there is no public outcry for tougher anti-smoking legislation.

“It is being advanced by a select group in the nonprofit and public sectors who propose to speak for the private sector,” said Loretta Vogel, the group’s chairwoman.

Gerry Blowey, owner of Dookies restaurant on El Cajon Boulevard said a 50% nonsmoking requirement would devastate her business, which is attached to a bar and attracts a clientele of “80% to 90% smokers.”

“I would have 50% of my restaurant sitting empty,” she said. “I keep a separate smoke-free room, and I can’t fill it.”

‘Like Mussolini, Hitler’

And Theo Mucho, a 72-year-old San Diegan who said he has been smoking since he was 8, told the committee that it is “no different than Mussolini or Hitler because you’re stepping on our right and stepping on our toes.”

The recommendations considered Wednesday were forwarded by a city-appointed task force that met seven times in the past seven months. When the task force could reach no consensus on the workplace and restaurant issues, those matters were left up to City Manager John Lockwood’s staff, which came back with the two recommendations. The proposals were virtually the same as the county legislation.

The workplace rules would have allowed smoking only in private offices and only when no nonsmokers were present. The restaurant rules would have exempted taverns and eateries with fewer than 20 seats and allowed larger establishments to apply to Lockwood for exclusion from the 50% nonsmoking seat requirement.

Roberts attempted to modify that regulation to exempt restaurants with as many as 80 seats, but was able to attract only McColl to his position.

The committee also jettisoned several recommendations that the task force of pro-smoking and anti-smoking representatives was able to agree upon. That language would have required restaurants to provide smoke-free access to and from nonsmoking sections and would have prohibited placement of ashtrays on tables in nonsmoking sections.

Bowling Alleys Spared

Unlike the county ordinance, the city ordinance would have covered bowling alleys. But it would have left decisions on smoking in private hospital rooms up to individual hospitals. The county ordinance forbids that practice. The county ordinance requires setting aside nonsmoking hotel and motel rooms; the city proposal did not include that provision.

The committee did instruct Lockwood’s office to examine certain recommendations offered by the Coalition Advocating Individual Rights. Those include a requirement that workers in open “bullpen” offices be separated into smoking and nonsmoking sections and that restaurants receiving complaints from customers survey their clientele to determine the demand for nonsmoking seats.