Stadium Will Step Up Pitch Against Smoking : Health: But Authority Board for San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium declines to support an all-out ban.

Buffeted by complaints from nonsmokers, the board overseeing San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium agreed Thursday to be more vigilant against smoking, but stopped short of enacting a ban against cigarettes, pipes and cigars.

Spurred by then-member Mike Gotch, the Stadium Authority Board considered a no-smoking ordinance in 1989 that would have made San Diego’s the first outdoor stadium in the country to prohibit smoking.

With its recent ban, Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum now holds that distinction.

But in 1989, Gotch’s proposal ended up as a watered-down compromise. Now, before a stadium event begins, the scoreboard flashes the message:

“The Stadium Authority requests if you smoke please be considerate of your neighbor.”

Stadium Manager Bill Wilson said Thursday the board has agreed to “increase the frequency” of the message and alert security guards to obnoxious smokers whose exhaling may be bothering their neighbors.

But Wilson predicted that, within five years, San Diego will follow Oakland’s lead and ban smoking in its stadium.

“It started with no-smoking sections in restaurants,” Wilson said. “Then it was no smoking on airline flights. So, this is the course it’s going to go. We get so many complaints, so many letters, from nonsmokers. I’d say 80% of the fans don’t smoke, and of the 19% who do, it’s 1% we have the problem with.”

Authority Board members said letters from smokers and their opponents had increased since the arrest of an activist who spray-painted an anti-smoking graffito on the Marlboro sign near the stadium scoreboard before the start of a baseball game in June.

Donald G. House was charged with a felony count of malicious destruction of property and could be sentenced to 16 months to three years in state prison and be ordered to pay a $10,000 fine.

Wilson said the stadium now has three no-smoking sections during San Diego Padres baseball games and two during San Diego Chargers football games. He said that, in the future, the seating configuration might be reversed to favor nonsmokers, or the board could limit smoking to the stadium concourse.

Since the 1989 compromise was classified a “policy,” as opposed to an ordinance, it did not require the approval of the San Diego City Council, which oversees the Stadium Authority Board. Thus, any ban would have to be approved by the council.

Evonne Schulze, a spokeswoman for Assemblyman Mike Gotch (D-San Diego), who now represents the 78th District, said Gotch remains a vigilant nonsmoker who continues to lobby for a ban on stadium smoking.

“He’s very much against smoking, and there’s no question, it’s very much an infringement on fans who have no choice about sitting next to a smoker at the stadium,” Schulze said. “Mike will be very happy to go to the board and (lobby) the case further.”

Wilson said the latest discussion was begun by Oscar Padilla, the chairman of the authority board, who was deluged with letters in recent weeks. When the board took on the issue in 1989, the public debate became, in Wilson’s words, “a zoo.”

On one side were representatives of the American Lung Assn., an asthmatic child and several whose loved ones had died from smoking-related causes. On the other were East Coast lobbyists for the Tobacco Institute, as well as outraged members of Fans Advocating Individual Rights, some of whom smoked cigars at the lectern.

“At the moment, we’re not heading toward an ordinance,” Wilson said. “But we will do more work with the facilities committee and just encourage people to be considerate. And, in the future, who knows? It’s a hot issue. I suspect it will continue to be.”