Some Are Fuming Over Smoking Ban in Restaurants

The lunch crowd rolls into the Cherokee Cafe early and stays late. At its peak all 98 seats are taken, mostly by smokers, and these days, mostly by smokers who are fuming.

In less than two months, smokers will no longer be allowed to light up a cigarette or anything else before, during, or after any meal in any Bellflower restaurant.

The City Council on Monday unanimously voted to outlaw smoking in city restaurants despite dire predictions that the new law would “pit citizen against citizen,” and that Bellflower--the self-proclaimed “Friendly City”--would go down in history as the “Repressive City.”

The smoking ban, which is scheduled to go into effect March 5, is the most sweeping and stringent of its kind in Southern California. Residents or restaurant owners who fail to comply could be fined up to $1,000.

“I can tell you one thing, I shop, eat, live and work in Bellflower, but I won’t be doing anything but living here any more,” said Elizabeth Schrader, a smoker with a 15-cigarette-a-day habit who stops by the cafe about three times a week for lunch or a morning cup of coffee. “I’ll go five miles down the road . . . to Lakewood.”

Council members said the well-publicized health dangers of secondhand smoke called for drastic intervention to protect the health of Bellflower residents.

“We’ve got to stand for something or else we will fall for anything,” Councilman Joseph E. Cvetko told the estimated 230 residents, restaurant owners and lobbyists who packed the City Hall auditorium.

The council’s decision was met by both cheers and jeers from the audience, many of whom wore patches proclaiming “Save Our Restaurants.”

“I’m sick and tired of having my rights taken away from me,” Marvin Stevens, the owner of Cherokee Cafe, told the council. “I smoked for 35 years and I quit. I quit because I wanted to quit. Not because of my health or because someone else made me quit. I don’t like somebody telling me what to do. After all, it’s my money that is invested in this business. If my sales drop I’m going to ask the City Council to subsidize my business.”

Gregory B. Ibbetson, former vice president of the Bellflower Public Facilities Corp., said: “Contrary to the beliefs of some nonsmokers, (smokers) have a right to smoke. Until it’s illegal, those people have a right to smoke.”

Ibbetson’s opinions, and those of many smokers in the auditorium, were quickly and repeatedly contradicted.

“For the last few years, I’ve heard a lot about smokers’ rights,” said one resident. “What are those rights? To make other people sick? I believe that the rights of a smoker end when they infringe upon the rights of a nonsmoker.”

Marie O’Donnell, a Cerritos resident who owns property in Bellflower, praised the council.

“Smokers have no rights in public. They have no right to kill. If 75% of the people don’t smoke any more, why should we let the addicted minority control the rest of us?”

Besides, O’Donnell added, “Smokers just don’t know how bad they smell.”

In addition to the ban on smoking in restaurants, the ordinance bans smoking in most enclosed spaces to which the public has access and mandates that hotel and motel owners set aside 10% of their rooms for nonsmokers.

Galleries, libraries, museums, video arcades and meeting rooms open to the public are also included in the ban. Bars, tobacco stores, malls, private offices, private residences and places of religious worship are exempted from the ordinance.

The council on Monday also introduced a second smoking ordinance that could exempt restaurants with cocktail bars that adjoin the dining room, pool halls, bowling alleys and bingo parlors. That ordinance is not expected to receive final approval until the Jan. 28 meeting.

Although some of Monday night’s debate deteriorated into personal jabs between nonsmokers who criticized the “selfish” attitude of smokers, and smokers who complained of nonsmokers’ “holier than thou” attitudes, the fiercest arguments centered on the health versus profits issue.

Restaurant owners and lobbyists representing the California Restaurant Assn. and the Los Angeles-based Restaurants for Sensible Voluntary Policy (on Smoking), said that the restaurants would lose business to surrounding cities where there are no strict smoking laws.

“This community is an island,” said Gerald Breitbart, a consultant for the California Restaurant Assn. Many restaurant owners urged the City Council to compromise and consider a less-strict ordinance or one that would allow a long phase-in period.

Rudy Cole, executive vice president of RSVP, told the council that education and peer pressure eventually will eradicate smoking.

“Smoking has decreased in society and this has been done without laws,” Cole said. “You’re going to adopt an ordinance that will hurt business in the city and you’re doing this in the face of the fact that fewer and fewer people smoke.”

In addition, Cole said, none of the scientific studies that reveal the dangers of secondhand smoke have ever been conducted with regard to secondhand smoke in restaurants.

Pauline Merry, a representative of the American Heart Assn. who spoke in favor of the ordinance at Monday’s meeting, scoffed at the notion that secondhand smoke in restaurants is somehow less potent than secondhand smoke elsewhere.

“Secondhand smoke is secondhand smoke regardless of where it occurs,” she said.

Merry told the council that scientists and researchers have identified secondhand smoke as a contributing factor in the leading causes of avoidable fatal illnesses such as heart disease, cancer, stroke and chronic pulmonary disease.

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.

Council members repeatedly have said that the issue of banning smoking is one that overrides personal liberties and profits.

“It is my strong belief that elected officials have the responsibility to be solely involved in issues that are for the betterment of the health of the community,” Mayor Randy Bomgaars said. “I don’t view this as a denial of anyone’s rights. Those who choose to smoke will just have to refrain to a proper moment. . . . After you eat you may go out and smoke twice as much. That’s your right.”

Councilman William J. Pendleton pointed out that many smokers had remained in their chairs for more than 2 1/2 hours without a cigarette and “obviously no one is having convulsions.”

But he said: “I think that there are probably some legitimate concerns, and everybody has rights--until what you do as an individual affects me as an individual.”

Several restaurant owners said they are considering launching a recall of the entire council.