Farrell’s Vote a Smoke Signal

Bob Farrell has always been a dependable pro-business vote on the Los Angeles City Council.

It makes political sense. The predominantly black and Latino constituents of his South-Central Los Angeles district, ranging from desperately poor to working class, are struggling in a difficult economy. Farrell, a black councilman, has felt they need jobs, not environmental schemes that may put employers out of business.

But on Tuesday, Farrell said no to two very big businesses, the tobacco industry and Los Angeles’ restaurants, which employ many of his constituents. He voted to ban smoking in restaurants. “For me it was a significant shift,” Farrell said later.

In the short run, Farrell’s vote didn’t make much difference. The ban failed on a 6-6 vote, two shy of the eight needed for passage. But the switch of this solidly pro-business councilman was noteworthy. It can be interpreted as a sign--albeit an early one--of a political and social change in black neighborhoods, which are besieged by high rates of heart disease, hypertension and cancer, all of them linked to smoking.

It’s true there’s more to the restaurant smoking ban than jobs vs. health. To nonsmoking Councilman Michael Woo, who voted against the measure, it’s a matter of personal freedom. “People have an opportunity to choose where they eat out,” he told me after the vote.

But personal freedom wasn’t the issue on Farrell’s mind. It was the more agonizing choice of either possibly closing down restaurants where his constituents work and offending some major political supporters, or trusting his instincts in detecting a fundamental change in his district.

Bob Farrell has been on the City Council since the mid-’70s, arriving as a young politician of great promise. At UCLA in the ‘60s, he had wanted to go into journalism. But newspapers weren’t hiring many--if any--blacks in those days, so Farrell went into politics.

I was impressed by his political smarts when we met while he was working in Tom Bradley’s campaign for mayor in 1973.

Today, though, it’s clear watching Farrell that the pressures of dealing with constituents and other council members have taken a toll. He flails at a variety of issues. Fascinated with global and national matters, he seems more interested in Africa than Slauson Avenue.

Although Farrell is famous for inconsistency, support of job-producing business has been a career constant. That has won him the support of lobbyists for builders, restaurants, oil, tobacco, construction and others with business at City Hall. The alliance has paid off. In fact, he told me the tobacco companies have been among his political supporters.

The latest vote, he said, came as the result of a new attitude in his community. In part, he said, the attitude has been fostered by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Welfare, Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, who is black. Sullivan has campaigned relentlessly against smoking and the cigarette advertising campaigns that target the black community.

“He’s a person of African-American heritage who is on a crusade on health issues,” Farrell said, “and he’s forcing us to look at those issues as never before.”

A letter from Sullivan was on the top of a packet of anti-smoking material handed out to council members before the vote by the smoking ban’s author, Councilman Marvin Braude.

Also included were two studies by Environmental Protection Agency scientists warning of secondhand smoke. For nonsmokers, they said, inhaling secondhand smoke is like smoking three low-tar cigarettes a day. They said it caused about 5,000 lung cancer deaths a year in the United States.

The combination of Sullivan and the figures did it for Farrell.

It’s true that one vote doesn’t make a movement. The issue will be before the City Council again and Farrell will be under heavy pressure from his old tobacco industry pals to change. And Councilman Nate Holden, from the adjacent district, opposed the ban. Obviously, not all of South Los Angeles agrees with Farrell.

But I think he’s on the right track. All through the district, you see a new consciousness of health. In churches and community centers, there are posters advertising no-smoking clinics and classes on diet and stress control. Ministers promote the classes from the pulpit.

There is an understanding, as Farrell’s vote indicated, that a job isn’t worth much without good health. And wouldn’t it be something if all neighborhoods were free from having to choose between the two?