ENVIRONMENT : Restaurateur Breathes Easier After Success of No-Smoking Policy

Paul Berkman had an unusual New Year’s resolution this year: to ban smoking at one of his two restaurants.

It’s ironic, because the restaurants--both named Rutabegorz--started out years ago as coffeehouses, the sort of quaint little places where people drank coffee, discussed the war and, says Berkman, smoked up a storm.

“I had three months of sleepless nights before actually making the change,” he says.

So far, Berkman says, he hasn’t received a single letter of complaint about the change at the Tustin restaurant, which began as a coffeehouse 16 years ago; in fact, all the mail has been supportive.

He also owns a 25-year-old restaurant in Fullerton that still permits smoking in one room. That’s because, unlike Tustin, it’s in an old house where the windows can be opened. Business is down about $100 a day in Tustin, but Berkman says that might be connected to the recession rather than the no-smoking rule.

Smoking is an issue that restaurant owners are grappling with these days as nonsmoking customers--and increasingly, some local governments--demand a smoke-free environment. Long Beach, for instance, recently required restaurants to set aside at least two-thirds of their space for nonsmokers.

Meanwhile, many hard-core smokers grow more resentful as they’re pushed into ever-smaller areas of restaurants.

While his fellow restaurateurs say they would oppose a complete ban on smoking in restaurants, most of them probably wouldn’t mind a statewide ban, says Berkman, who’s on the board of the local restaurant association.

“They’re afraid that if you ban it just in Santa Ana, all your smoking customers will go to Anaheim,” he says.

Few local restaurants, he says, have banned smoking entirely. But as lighting up becomes increasingly unpopular, more eateries may do so.

Berkman tried to make the transition as painless as possible: He posted notices for three months before banning smoking at the Tustin restaurant, which seats 150 in two rooms. And when patrons violated the policy, the staff was instructed to use restraint in asking them to stub it out.

“I don’t want to be judgmental about it,” says Berkman, 42. “I smoked for years myself.

“Even though I quit 10 years ago, I still like the smell.”