Tax Figures Indicate Smoking Ban Hasn’t Hurt Restaurants : Business: Sales-tax reports for eateries show slight increase over same period last year. But overall city sales are down 13%, mostly due to closure of two car dealerships.

Before a total ban on smoking in Bellflower restaurants went into effect in March, critics were predicting that it would kill the city’s eateries and drive their customers into neighboring cities with less-stringent smoking rules.

But sales-tax figures released this week indicate that rather than faltering, Bellflower restaurants as a whole performed slightly better during April through June than during the same period a year ago.

According to the Glendora consulting firm that analyzes sales-tax data for the city, dine-in restaurants in Bellflower chalked up gross sales of just over $4 million during the second quarter of 1991, compared to $3.9 million for the comparable quarter in 1990.

At the same, the consultant, Hinderliter, de Llamas & Associates, reported that overall Bellflower second-quarter sales-tax revenues declined by 13% in comparison to the same period a year ago. The slump in automobile sales, which saw the closure of the Pete Ellis Ford and Carmen Koosa Toyota dealerships, took much of the blame.

Sales-tax receipts totaled just over $886,000 during April through June.

“Sales activity within the new automobile dealer category for the first and second quarters of 1991 was down over 40% when compared to the same quarters of 1990,” said consultant Robert Hinderliter in his report to the city.

He said this decline, combined with revenue drops at the city’s service stations, was the major reason for the overall sales-tax drop.

Hinderliter said the slight increase in Bellflower restaurant sales followed a trend in other cities that his firm serves.

In Bellflower, there were varying opinions about what the numbers say about the restaurant smoking ban, which was imposed by the council out of concern over the health dangers of secondhand smoke.

“I did not expect a decline” when there is a ratio of 20% smokers to 80% nonsmokers, said Councilman Bob Stone, who was the catalyst of the nonsmoking ordinance. “I still believe that nonsmokers will come out in full force and support any city that has taken the stance to clear the air up in restaurants.”

He said his only disappointment is that restaurants are not taking advantage of the ordinance and advertising a smoke-free dining atmosphere.

But Marvin Stevens, owner of the Cherokee restaurant, called the sales figures inconceivable. “Restaurants have not gone up, they’ve gone down,” said Stevens, who strongly opposed the ordinance when it was before the council.

He said that since he bought the long-established Cherokee two years ago, it was serving 200 to 300 customers a day. Today, that number is 90 to 100, he said, attributing 30% of his business decline to the smoking ban.

“All the people I know in the business are screaming and crying,” Stevens said, adding that he has his restaurant up for sale but hasn’t “had one bite.”

For his part, Tom Marino, who owns an Italian restaurant that bears his name, said the economic downturn--not the smoking ban--has done the greatest harm to his business, which he said is recovering from a slump that started when the Persian Gulf War erupted.

Marino said that some smokers were initially upset by the ban, but most of them have returned. And, he said, the restaurant has attracted nonsmokers who like the change.

Assistant City Administrator Linda Lowry said the gross sales figures indicate that restaurants as a whole are holding their own. At the same time, she said, it’s possible that some places where people used to “drink coffee and smoke” are doing badly.

“We said from the beginning all we can do is interpret the sales-tax data as it comes back to us,” she said. “We don’t have have access to owners’ private records. All we do is react to what we get at the end, (and what we have) says that it’s OK.”