Restaurants to City Council: Butt Out : Regulation: Proposed anti-smoking restrictions are lifted after restaurateurs warn of dire consequences to business. : PASADENA

After a parade of restaurateurs warned of dire consequences from a new smoking ordinance and complained of “Big Brother” seeking to meddle in their businesses, the City Council on Tuesday exempted restaurants from proposed new anti-smoking restrictions.

The council then put off debate on other restrictions, relating primarily to workplace policies, until city staff can provide data showing they are needed.

“This is a solution searching for a problem,” said Councilman Isaac Richard, the council’s sole smoker, who repeatedly attacked the need for changes in the city’s 8-year-old Clean Indoor Air Ordinance. Richard left the council chambers twice during the three-hour debate to smoke cigarettes.

The existing ordinance requires restaurants to set aside 25% of their seating for nonsmokers, and it restricts smoking in many public areas and job sites, though it permits it in private offices.

The new ordinance would have required 75% of restaurant seating to be designated for nonsmokers and it would have prohibited any workplace smoking.

Mayor Jess Hughston, a member of the Pasadena Tobacco Control Assn., which is pushing for a total smoking ban in enclosed public places, argued that secondhand tobacco smoke permeates restaurants and workplaces with toxic gases.

“It doesn’t stay in one place, not even in the boss’s private office,” Hughston said.

A series of experts, including two USC professors and a Pasadena pulmonary specialist, agreed. City health officer Jacqueline Stiff said that tobacco smoke is “right up there with asbestos and radon as a carcinogen.”

But the restaurant owners insisted that they were already giving their customers ample nonsmoking room, without the prod of a city ordinance.

“We’re able to survive in a competitive environment because we listen to our customers,” said Roger Renick, owner of the restaurant The Chronicle. “If we don’t listen, we’re gone.”

Most Pasadena restaurants already set aside more than 50% of their seating for nonsmokers, said Michael Hawkins, owner of the Green Street Restaurant. He said that more smoking restrictions could jeopardize many local restaurants, which are already in distress because of the recession.

“The voters can only dump you every four years,” Hawkins told the council. “But our customers reject us every time they decide to dine somewhere else.”

Hughston acknowledged that the decision last month by the Los Angeles City Council not to impose similar smoking restrictions puts Pasadena at a disadvantage.

“We were disappointed when that happened,” Hughston said. “One of my (council) colleagues told me that his vote was conditioned on our having a level playing field.”

Restaurateurs have argued since a smoking ban was first proposed in January that many of their customers would choose to eat in other cities, where there are no bans on smoking. With smoking still permitted in Los Angeles, Pasadena diners who smoke would have a nearby alternative, Hughston conceded.

The council voted not to consider any new restaurant restrictions for at least six months. But members said they would give serious consideration to workplace restrictions, should city staff be able to document a problem at Pasadena job sites.

Unlike restaurant patrons, workers in smoky environments do not have the option of walking away, several council members said.

“An ordinance imposing some restrictions in the workplace makes some sense,” said Richard, who was in the hallway smoking when the council finally voted.