Bellflower Ban on Restaurant Smoking Opposed : Restaurants: Business owners, tobacco industry representatives and a powerful lobby plan to descend on the City Council meeting to speak against the ordinance.

Representatives of the tobacco industry and a powerful restaurant lobby group, as well as irate business owners, plan to descend on the City Council on Monday night to try to derail an ordinance that would outlaw smoking in city restaurants.

The council last month initially approved the ordinance, one of Southern California’s strictest. Smoking would be banned in public restaurants and virtually every enclosed space to which the public has access.

But representatives of the Los Angeles-based Restaurants for Sensible Voluntary Policy (On Smoking), or RSVP, and some members of the Chamber of Commerce contended that the ordinance is unnecessary and predicted that it would drive out Bellflower restaurant patrons to surrounding communities, which have fewer restrictions on smoking.

RSVP, which represents about 1,000 restaurants in the Los Angeles area, was one of the leading lobbyists against a recent plan by the city of Los Angeles to ban smoking in its restaurants. The Los Angeles City Council backed down from a total ban, voting instead to require vents and partitions in restaurants that serve more than 50 patrons. The organization was also involved in a successful campaign to stop Culver City leaders from passing a similar ordinance.

A dozen of the Bellflower Chamber of Commerce’s 18 directors have also spoken out against the ordinance.

“I’m not saying that we are opposed to the ordinance as far as health issues are concerned. We all agree that secondhand smoking is no good,” said Paul Benjamin, president of the Bellflower Chamber of Commerce. “I’m concerned that a smoker can go three miles down the road to a restaurant that doesn’t have the ordinance. It’s not fair to our businesses.”

Council members, however, are showing no signs that they intend to back down.

“To me personally, (smoking) is like spitting on someone,” said Councilman Joseph E. Cvetko. “It permeates everything--your hair, your clothes. You’ve been polluted. A restaurant should smell like food, not like someone’s stale cigarette.”

Besides banning cigarette smoking in restaurants, the ordinance mandates that hotel and motel owners set aside 10% of their rooms for nonsmokers. Public areas of galleries, libraries, museums, video arcades and meeting rooms are also included in the ban. Bars, tobacco stores, private offices and residences and places of religious worship would be exempt.

Council members said the known health threats posed by secondhand smoke call for drastic action. The American Heart Assn. last week reported that secondhand smoke causes heart diseases that kill 53,000 nonsmoking Americans each year. The Environmental Protection Agency recently listed secondhand smoke as a leading cancer-causing agent.

On Monday, the council plans to discuss the ordinance and hear public comment for a second time, as required by law. If the council gives final approval, the law will take effect in mid-February.

Rudy Cole, the executive vice president of RSVP, said there are alternatives to outlawing smoking in restaurants.

“There is no real need for this,” Cole said. “There are people who are anti-smoking who want to do something. This is the wrong place and the wrong time to do something like this.”

Several business owners have raised questions about what they call the “vague” language of the ordinance. How, for example, would the local bowling alley, which has a bar and a restaurant, be affected? What about small restaurants with bars?

But Cvetko, Mayor Randy Bomgaars, and council members Bob Stone, John Ansdell and Bill Pendleton said they remain committed to a total ban on cigarette smoking in the city’s restaurants. Ansdell and Pendleton have suggested minor modifications to the ordinance to clear up confusion about the small restaurants and the bowling alley.

“One of our duties is to improve the health and safety of the community,” Bomgaars said. “I really feel it is my obligation to look at this strictly as a health issue. . . . We’ve come too far in this day and age to play dumb.”

Stone, who started smoking when he was in the sixth grade and smoked for 25 years before he gave it up eight years ago, said he will urge his colleagues to pass the ordinance as it is. “My feeling is a very strong minority is making waves,” he said.

All five council members have said they do not believe such an ordinance will hurt the restaurants, and in fact may bring in more customers.

“If people are going to an establishment simply because they can smoke, I question what that says about that establishment,” Bomgaars said. “I would think restaurant owners would capitalize on this. Now they can say, ‘People come here because they like the food, because they like the service, because they like the prices. Not because they can smoke.’ ”

RSVP’s Cole said that despite the council members’ confidence that restaurant business will not drop if the ordinance is passed, past experience has shown otherwise. He was executive director of the Beverly Hills Restaurant Assn. three years ago when the group forced the Beverly Hills City Council to rescind a 90-day-old law banning smoking in restaurants.

“I thought that when Beverly Hills passed its ordinance that we would see more business. After all, 70% of the people today are nonsmokers,” Cole said. “But that didn’t happen, and you know why? Because restaurants depend on parties of four to survive. If one person in that party of four smokes, that person will determine where the group eats. This could put some small restaurants under.”

Cole said the council should work with the restaurant owners on alternatives, such as providing separate sections for smokers and nonsmokers, and “making sure the smoking section is not near the door where nonsmokers can be bothered when they come in. And if there are more nonsmokers than smokers, then owners should increase the nonsmoking section and not make nonsmokers wait for a seat.”

The Chamber of Commerce’s Benjamin said that he would prefer a statewide smoking ban that would affect restaurants in every city. He said he hopes to persuade the council to delay final action on the local ordinance until state lawmakers decide the fate of two bills on the issue.

A Senate bill, sponsored by state Sen. Daniel E. Boatwright (D-Concord) would ban smoking in restaurants, medical facilities and publicly owned or leased buildings. It would not preempt any local ordinance that is stricter. A similar bill introduced by Assemblyman Steve Peace (D-La Mesa) would preempt local ordinances.

The council meeting is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at 16600 Civic Center Drive.