Smoking Laws Are Tightened

Beginning today, restaurants and workplaces in San Diego will be required to do more to protect the rights of nonsmokers, including setting aside half the seats in restaurants for those who don’t smoke.

The new rules are aimed at eliminating the dangerous--and even fatal--consequences of secondhand smoke.

The ordinance, unanimously approved by the City Council in April, takes effect today and is in keeping with recent findings by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that tobacco smoke is a Type A carcinogen, the same classification reserved for asbestos.

“Since 1975, we have progressively tightened smoking rules as the public has been willing to have them tightened,” said George Story, spokesman for the city manager’s office. “In 20 years, the ordinance could become much stricter. We’re hoping that (by that time) we won’t have any smokers.”

The revised law includes the following key points:

* A minimum of 50% of a restaurant’s indoor seating must be reserved as a nonsmoking area, signs must be posted stating that smoking is allowed only in certain areas, and smoking will not be allowed in shared employee areas at work sites.

* Restaurants must designate nonsmoking areas in locations where people won’t have to walk through smoking sections en route to the restroom, if structurally feasible. However, restaurants will not be required to build new structures to accommodate nonsmokers.

The former ordinance prohibited smoking in public areas or at workplaces except in designated areas. Employers were also responsible for providing smoke-free areas for nonsmokers to the maximum extent possible.

Restaurants, under the former law, were required to designate an adequate amount of seating--without specifying how much--for nonsmokers and to inform all patrons that a no-smoking section was provided.

Critics who called those provisions weak and vague are lauding the change.

“It was a weak law that told restaurants they only had to provide enough seating to ‘meet the demand,’ ” said Jane Young, a spokeswoman with County Health Services Department. “It was too vague. Employers were just required to make a good-faith effort.”

According to the American Cancer Society, 3,800 people die each year of lung cancer caused by secondhand smoke. Studies have also shown that nonsmoking spouses married to smokers have a 30% higher chance of contracting lung cancer than couples who don’t smoke.

The ordinance, which replicates one in San Diego County that has been in effect since 1988, places a financial burden on restaurants, said attorney Robert Ottilie, who has represented business owners opposed to the smoking ordinance.

“If you own a business or restaurant, and more than 50% of your clientele smoke, they’re going to walk down the street and the restaurant will lose the customer,” Ottilie said. “Why should a restaurant have to absorb the cost of someone’s value system?”

One restaurant owner who caters to a large smoking clientele said he will have to make some significant accommodations.

“The public is accepting it, and I don’t think it will be a problem,” said John Dahlen, co-owner of Bully’s East and the Old Town Mexican Cafe. “We (Bully’s East) sell a lot of cigarettes here and we have what we think is as good a program, as far as filtering smoke, as you can have and still have smoking.

“There’s no way I can make a private entrance to accommodate nonsmokers, because then I have no smoking at all. I’m a nonsmoker, but I’m also a businessman.”

Dahlen said he has 92 seats in his restaurant. Twenty-eight of those are designated nonsmoking.

“We’re going to have to make some changes,” he said.