Karcher Shareholders Raise Ecology Concerns : Annual meeting: Investors grill company officials about burger-produced pollution, foam packaging and smoking in the restaurants.

Shareholders of Carl Karcher Enterprises Inc. want the company to clear the air.

At the company’s annual meeting here Wednesday, several shareholders grilled company officials about the environmental issues facing the Anaheim-based operator of the Carl’s Jr. fast-food chain.

The shareholders expressed concerns over air pollution from charbroilers, the use of ozone-depleting foam packaging and cigarette smoking in the restaurants.

Company officials conceded that pollution from its charbroilers was a growing concern. The company has been assessed three of the 69 fines imposed by the South Coast Air Quality Management District since June, 1988, for smoke from open-flame charbroilers, according to Don Glenn, vice president for property development.

The violations have cost the company $2,000, but the new anti-smoke equipment costs quite a bit more--between $20,000 and $25,000 per restaurant, Glenn said. The company has nearly 500 restaurants, most of which are in pollution-sensitive Southern California.

He said that chimneys in two outlets have been fitted with the devices--called electrostatic precipitators. But the company is seeking approval to use less expensive scrubber/filter systems, which cost about $8,000 each, in its other restaurants.

“We want to do everything we can as good citizens,” he said in an interview after the meeting. “But this is only one of the areas the district has to look at in terms of pollution in the basin.”

Company officials said they are test-marketing paper coffee cups, rather than foam, in their Northern California and Oregon restaurants. The foam cups give off ozone-depleting chemicals when produced.

The company also is considering a ban on smoking in its outlets. The firm expects to make a determination of whether to prohibit smoking within the next three to six months, Executive Vice President Ray Perry said.

On the financial front, President Donald Karcher said the company had weathered a difficult year for fast food. He listed three areas of difficulty: larger chains waging a price competition, produce prices rising in the fourth quarter as a result of bad weather, and a generally soft economy.

Karcher said first-quarter earnings this year are encouraging, compared with losses at the end of last year. The company reported revenues of $157.1 million, up from $148.9 million last year. However, its net income was $5.3 million for its first quarter, down 7.4% from a year earlier.

e figures were an improvement over the end of the last fiscal year, Karcher said. In April, the company announced a one-time reduction in earnings of $14.5 million to pay for disposition or franchising of 33 restaurants in Arizona. The company has said that its Arizona stores had been losing approximately $5 million a year.

Karcher said the company’s immediate objective is to improve its profit margin by adding 30 company stores and 15 franchises this year in key California markets. It has recently opened three new restaurants in Japan, with two more to come, and is planning to open in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia in early 1991, Karcher said.

He said Carl’s Jr. will also add two roast beef sandwiches by September and will have installed debit card machines in all of its locations by then.

The debit card program, which the company has been testing in San Francisco, San Diego and Sacramento, allows a customer to pay for a meal with a Star/Cirrus card and to receive up to $40 cash as well.

Karcher said customers are spending up to 50% more per meal in the test restaurants.