ORANGE COUNTY VOICES : Clouding Issues on Smoking Bans

Right up front let me say that I am a strong proponent of city and county ordinances prohibiting smoking in public places and in the workplace. I am disturbed by the reluctance of these governments to enact such ordinances, and I question their reasons for their lack of action.

I grew up thinking a primary responsibility of government was protecting the health and safety of its citizens. Now I hear Orange County city councils shirking that duty on the grounds of not wanting to interfere with private business by passing no-smoking ordinances. They also assume that enforcement will be very expensive. Neither reason is valid. Consider the facts:

Prohibiting smoking in businesses and public buildings is a health issue, not a regulation on doing business. Tobacco smoke is the most widespread and harmful indoor air pollutant that most people will encounter. Environmental tobacco smoke fills the air with 43 carcinogens and 400 other toxic substances. Secondhand smoke is a serious cause of disease in healthy nonsmokers, causing an estimated 3,000 cases of lung cancer and 32,000 heart disease deaths each year. It aggravates the symptoms of asthma, emphysema, hay fever and other respiratory diseases. Nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke in the workplace had the same impairment after 20 years as the smoker of half a pack of cigarettes a day for that same time.

Those of us who advocate anti-smoking ordinances for public places do so for the protection of the workers in those places who are exposed to the dangers eight to 12 hours a day. Opponents of these ordinances focus on restaurants and restaurant patrons. They forget that restaurants are workplaces just as airplanes are workplaces. The comfort of diners, while important, is of less concern than the health of the restaurant employees.

Many Orange County jurisdictions have ordinances providing for from 20% to 75% (San Juan Capistrano) of restaurant tables in a nonsmoking area. Unfortunately, the employees must work in both areas, and a single ventilation system serves the entire establishment, minimizing the benefit of the division of the space.

The cities that have provided for a portion of the restaurant being smoke-free use the same arguments as the cities with no ordinances for failure to enlarge the smoke-free area. This is true even though Orange County has the lowest percentage of the population who smokes--18.9%. The math is easy: 81% of the population gets only 20% to 40% of the space in all but five cities of the 13 cities that have enacted any ordinance at all. Still, when asked to strengthen the ordinances to enlarge the no-smoking area, governmental bodies use the same excuse: We don’t want to interfere with private businesses. I fail to see how a 25% provision is not interference, but 50% is. This seems to be a result of the fallacy of regarding restaurants as something other than places of employment.

These ordinances are not being supported in an effort to impose a tobacco prohibition on current smokers. Certainly smokers have the right to make their own health decisions and to continue smoking if they wish. Smokers have not stopped flying because of the smoking ban. They have not quit jobs in businesses with no-smoking policies. And, if IRS data are correct, they have not stopped eating in restaurants that have no-smoking policies (even 100% nonsmoking establishments). Bellflower restaurants fared better from April through June, 1991, after a March total smoking ban than they had in the same period in 1990 before the ban was put into effect. Diners did not defect to neighboring cities without such a ban.

The second argument that the cost of enforcement will be prohibitive is equally unfounded. There were many complaints about smoking in the workplace before ordinances began to be enacted. Complaints are few now in those cities where good ordinances exist.

Many enlightened businesses have instituted no-smoking policies not only for the health and comfort of employees, but because they reap the benefits of lower health care costs, decreased absenteeism and lower maintenance costs. Many other businesses are just waiting for an ordinance to ease their way into the no-smoking fraternity.

While it is not the intention of those of us pushing for ordinances covering workplaces and public businesses and buildings to force smokers to quit, research has shown that 80% to 90% of current smokers want to quit. They are in favor of anything that will help them kick the addiction. I, for one, will feel great if these ordinances and policies have that effect. A healthy society certainly will be a better place in which to live and work.