City Panel Urges Law to Ban Smoking in Restaurants

Moving toward a complete ban on restaurant smoking, a city panel on Monday recommended that the City Council order drafting of a law to bar the practice in all eating places and city government buildings in Los Angeles.

On Jan. 28, the City Council will vote on whether to order the city attorney to draft the ordinance proposed by Councilman Marvin Braude, a crusading anti-smoker whose opponents include the 3,000-member California Restaurant Assn. and the powerful tobacco industry.

“The time has come,” Braude told the three-member Arts, Health and Humanities Committee chaired by Councilman Joel Wachs. “Los Angeles should be up front in setting the tone for a country heading toward a smoke-free society by the year 2000.”

The panel heard four hours of testimony from doctors, tobacco industry representatives, restaurant owners and employees before voting unanimously to ask the council to request the draft ordinance, which, if approved, would make Los Angeles the first large city in the nation to ban smoking entirely in eating places.

But in a surprise move, Wachs suggested an alternative proposal that could undermine Braude’s second attempt in a year to legislate smoking out of existence in city restaurants.

“I may not support the ban,” Wachs said. “I may propose instead that restaurants be able to choose whether they want to be a smoking restaurant or a nonsmoking one.”

If Wachs makes such a proposal, it could undermine Braude’s efforts and lead the council to an altogether different ordinance.

Proponents of a complete ban include Dr. David Burns, a professor of medicine at UC San Diego and a member of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency panel that recently concluded that even secondary smoke can be a cancer-causing pollutant.

Burns attributed 100 deaths a year in Los Angeles, which requires that restaurants set aside seating for nonsmokers, to diseases related to exposure to secondhand smoke.

Joe Linda Thompson, a restaurant association lobbyist, said her group prefers a uniform ban on smoking in enclosed public places across the state, which would eliminate confusion created by at least 300 local ordinances on the books statewide.

“If smoking is a health hazard, it ought to be banned in all enclosed public places, period,” Thompson said in a phone interview. “Right now, the laws are very confusing and raise the potential of hostile encounters between restaurant managers and their customers.”

Beyond that, she said, a complete ban on smoking could sink some Los Angeles eating places struggling to stay afloat in tough economic times, resulting in layoffs.

“If it affects jobs, it is not a prudent ordinance,” said Miguel Contreras, spokesman for the 12,000-member Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, Local 11. “We think it will create a job loss in Los Angeles at a time when we can afford it least.”

Braude and several other council members have dismissed such dire predictions as scare tactics aimed at postponing the inevitable.

Twelve cities and two counties across the state have banned smoking entirely from restaurants over the last year, and the number of Californians who smoke has dropped to 20%, Braude said.

“It is true the restaurant business is vulnerable, that business is down and that people are spending more time at home,” Braude said. “But the major thrust (of the proposed ordinance) is a health issue--it overrides everything else.”

In October, 1990, the City Council deadlocked 6 to 6 on a similar proposal--also authored by Braude--which needed eight votes to pass.