Restaurateur Vows to Resist Smoking Ban

A restaurant owner who defied a city smoking ordinance and was slapped with a $117 fine said Wednesday that he will continue to allow his patrons to smoke.

“I will not give up,” said Norman Chien, the owner of Curly Jones Restaurant and Coffee Shop. “This law is not fair, and if my business does not come up and I have to close I will sue the city to get back every penny I have lost.”

Chien was recently found guilty by a Bellflower municipal judge of failure to inform his customers that the city prohibits smoking in restaurants, and of allowing his customers to smoke. He was ordered to pay the fine and to post 10 “No Smoking” signs in his restaurant.

The Bellflower smoking ordinance, one of the strictest in the state, bans smoking in nearly all public places, including restaurants. Shortly after the ban went into effect in March, Chien set aside a banquet room in his restaurant and called it the Country Club in an attempt to take advantage of a section of the ordinance that allows smoking in private clubs.

Established social and business organizations as well as patrons who purchased a $5 “Country Club” membership were ushered into the separate banquet room where they were allowed to smoke.

City leaders did not buy Chien’s argument that the “Country Club” was a private club that entitled its members to smoke. In June, Chien became the first, and so far the only, business owner cited for breaking the smoking law.

Mike Egan, assistant to the city administrator, said that if Chien continues to allow smoking in the restaurant he will face increasingly larger fines and eventually could be sentenced to jail time.

But, Egan said, “That’s not what we are looking for. We are not trying to have a war with anybody. We just want people to obey the law.”