Eateries Find Smoking Ban Hard to Swallow : Restaurants: Tough new law has driven away customers, some managers say. But the effects, in what was already a recession year, are unclear.

It is 12:35, lunchtime, and every so often the front door of the Casa Grande restaurant swings open and a sudden shaft of light streams into the cool darkness, sharply illuminating the empty booths of a half-deserted dining room.

“Look at this place,” owner Chuck Wells says, surveying his restaurant. “How many people do we have in the bar? I’d be surprised if there was three people. We used to have people lining up to get in here. We used to go to 3:30, 4 p.m.--and now, by five (minutes) to 1 the place is almost empty.”

Across town, on Bellflower Boulevard, Tom Marino greets customers as they crowd through the door of his Italian restaurant. Nearly every table is full. Waiters and waitresses bustle between the kitchen and the dining room. Business is not as good as it was last year, but it is not bad, either, Marino says.

A man dressed in a suit walks in. “Smoking or nonsmoking, it doesn’t matter,” he says to Marino. Marino smiles. “It’s all nonsmoking.”

It has been almost four months since a city law went into effect banning smoking in Bellflower’s restaurants and severely restricting it in other public places. The law’s impact has barely been felt by some but has sent others, particularly restaurant owners, reeling.

“It is killing us,” Wells says.

Restaurant owners, especially those who own coffee shops, diners and restaurants with bars, say they are running out of money and time. Customers, disgusted by the law, have left in such numbers that these restaurant owners say they have been forced to lay off help and practically give away food in special bargains to make up for lost income.

But not everyone is struggling. Other business people around town, including owners of Marino’s, Magdalena’s Cafe & Pastries, Henry Moffett’s restaurant and Sizzler Steak House, say business is about the same or down slightly. But, they say, there is no telling why.

“There was the war, the economy is a mess, people aren’t spending money, and now, all of a sudden, everyone is blaming everything on smoking,” Marino said.

City Council members, who passed the law unanimously in January after hearing reports about the dangers of secondhand smoke, say they are unconvinced that the law has hurt business. As time passes, they say, they hear fewer complaints and more compliments from restaurant patrons.

“It’s been very quiet,” Councilman Joseph Cvetko said. “I think people are getting used to it. No one calls me at home to complain. I just don’t hear too much about it anymore.”

No one has spoken out at council meetings either for or against the smoking ban since the ordinance was passed. City Council members have received 41 letters--20 opposed and 21 in favor of the ban.

“I think the ban on smoking is wonderful,” reads a typical letter to the council. “To all of our Bellflower business people who post no-smoking signs, I say, ‘God bless you.’ You are doing the right thing.”

But walk into the Cherokee restaurant or Casa Grande or Curly Jones Restaurant or Ming’s or Denny’s or Norm’s or Ricci’s Deli, and you are likely to hear another story. Owners of these and other restaurants have been gathering signatures of residents opposed to the ordinance. They and their customers, both smokers and nonsmokers, complain that Bellflower no longer lives up to its motto, “The Friendly City.”

“It is killing Bellflower,” says one nonsmoking customer, an elderly woman eating pancakes at a nearly deserted Curly Jones Restaurant on Alondra Boulevard. She jabs the air with her fork. “Business in Bellflower is going to hell in a hand basket.”

A couple, also nonsmokers, sitting at a nearby table agree.

“Last I heard, this wasn’t Russia,” the woman said angrily. “It’s a ridiculous law. People should be permitted to smoke. It’s their choice. Nonsmokers are just a bunch of small-minded people who want things their own way.”

Abraham Arefaine, the manager of Denny’s on Rosecrans Avenue, said customers repeatedly ripped the no-smoking notice off his front door and threw it aside. “I finally had to put it in a glass frame,” he said.

Nearly all restaurant owners said they have customers who ignore the “No Smoking” signs and the absence of ashtrays. They light up anyway.

“I have a regular customer that walks in the door with a pipe,” Cherokee owner Patty Stevens said. “I tell him, ‘You can’t smoke in here.’ He says, ‘I know. Now get me an ashtray.’ ”

The law requires only that the owner tell the customer he can’t smoke. If the customer persists, it is up to another customer to call the city and complain.

“You gotta bend the rules a little,” said one longtime restaurant owner who asked not to be named. “You can’t be too hard on a customer. I got a big place here. If they wanna smoke, I put them in a corner. This law is like a misdemeanor. It’s just like jaywalking. No one cares.”

Some restaurant owners and managers said that if they did not allow their customers to light up, they would have to close.

Since March, at least three of the city’s 30 or so sit-down restaurants have been put up for sale. Their owners blame the smoking ordinance for forcing them out of business.

Rudy Cole, executive vice president of Restaurants for a Sensible Voluntary Policy, a Los Angeles-based group organizing Bellflower business owners against the ban, said a survey his group conducted found that restaurants in town had seen an average drop of 30% in the number of customers since the law was passed.

Cole said the group will ask the council Monday to exempt restaurants with bars and to ease the ban to allow smoking at 40% of a restaurant’s tables. Mayor William Pendleton, Cvetko and Councilman John Ansdell already have expressed their support for an amendment to exclude restaurants with bars from the law, but only Cvetko and Ansdell say they are willing to consider weakening the ban.

So far, sales tax receipts have not offered a clear picture of the law’s impact on the city’s business climate.

In March, when the ban went into effect, revenues from all sources of sales tax, including restaurants, dropped 18.9% compared to the same period last year. In April, however, they rose 3.2% above the previous year, and in May were 3.4% higher.

Assistant City Manager Mike Egan said the city will have a much better idea how restaurants have been faring sometime this month when the State Board of Equalization provides a breakdown of tax revenue figures, including restaurant totals, for April, May and June.

But many city officials say the smoking ordinance has become a scapegoat for restaurant owners whose problems may be related to the sluggish economy, poor food and service or just sloppy management.

“I can agree that there might be a problem if you are losing money directly because of the ordinance,” Mayor Pendleton said. “But prove it to me. I told (some restaurant owners), ‘Show me your books.’ ‘Oh, no,’ they said. ‘I can’t do that.’ Well, to me, that means either you’ve got something wrong with your books or something wrong with the numbers you say you’re losing.”

Cvetko said business in town is hurting, but “I’m not convinced you can blame it all on smoking.”

Councilman Randy Bomgaars dismissed the idea that the law has anything to do with some restaurant owners’ problems.

“I don’t think it has affected business, really,” he said. “It’s more due to the recession than anything else.”

Still, some owners say, it is hard to blame the recession when a customer can get a breakfast of bacon, eggs and pancakes for $1.99. Or a full Mexican dinner including soup, salad and dessert for $4.75.

“Sure, some of it is the recession, but the smoking law came right on top of the recession, and that is what is killing us,” Casa Grande owner Wells said. “It’s hard to smile and say (to the City Council), ‘Yes, you are right,’ when you know that they are wrong, when you know that they are killing you.”

Elizabeth Schrader, a local department store employee and a pack-a-day smoker, said she and her husband have stopped eating dinner in Bellflower.

“We go to Black Angus (in Cerritos) instead of Cris’ & Pitt’s,” she said. “We go to La Fiesta (in Lakewood) instead of Casa Grande.”

Managers at Spires in Norwalk, Bob’s Big Boy in Lakewood and the Off Street Cafe in Cerritos said they all have seen slight increases in business from disgruntled Bellflower residents since the ban went into effect.

Pete Malevenda, manager of Bob’s Big Boy in Norwalk, just outside the Bellflower city limit, said his business picked up the first week after the ban took effect.

“It’s been steady since then,” he said. “They tell us that there is no smoking in Bellflower. Most of them are angry. We get about 100 new customers a week.”

Pat Hinks, manager of Stox restaurant in Downey, said she also saw a 5% to 10% increase in her business after the ban went into effect--about 100 customers a week. However, she said, the recession has hurt business, and the new customers from Bellflower do not make up the loss.

City Council members said that if there is more solid evidence that the smoking ban is hurting Bellflower business, they will take a second look at it.

“We didn’t pass this (ban) and forget about it,” Bomgaars said. “We are watching it and asking ourselves, ‘Did we do the right thing or were we wrong?’ ”

BACKGROUND

On Jan. 14, the Bellflower City Council gave its final approval to one of California’s strictest anti-smoking laws. Council members, alarmed by reports on the dangers of secondhand smoke, voted unanimously to strictly limit smoking in public places and to ban it in restaurants. Council members said it was their duty to protect the health of Bellflower residents.