Strict No-Smoking Ordinance Repealed by 1-Vote Majority : Health: Restaurant owners are pleased with the decision, but some pledge to keep portions of their businesses smoke-free.

Despite children parading with signs and testimony from parents, youngsters and health experts on the threats posed by smoking, the Bellflower City Council has repealed Southern California’s toughest no-smoking ordinance 14 months after it took effect.

Mayor John Ansdell failed in a last-minute attempt Monday night to require nonsmoking and smoking areas in restaurants. Repeal of the no-smoking ordinance, which prohibits smoking in restaurants and most buildings with public access--takes effect in 30 days.

The vote was 3-to-2, with Ansdell and council members Ken Cleveland and Ruth Gilson voting for repeal. Council members Bob Stone and Bill Pendleton supported the smoking ban.

Restaurateur Lou Galasso, who has consistently labeled the ordinance a disaster for Bellflower eateries, said he is happy the fight is over. “We’ve lost so much business and getting it back will be a slow, slow process,” he said, adding that he will return to a 50-50 split between smoking and nonsmoking sections at Ricci’s Italian delicatessen.

Restaurant owner Andrew Craigie said he is pleased by the decision. He said that while he will keep his Round Table Pizza business more than 80% nonsmoking because “more customers prefer nonsmoking,” such decisions should be made by businesses and not government.

“It makes me sick to see behavior legislated in this manner,” he told the council before the vote was taken.

As he did two weeks ago when the council voted tentatively to repeal the ordinance, Stone called the move a “sad day for Bellflower” and a backward step for a small city that gained widespread attention for banning smoking as a health measure.

Pendleton drew some catcalls when he said that bad food and service, not the ban on smoking, hurt the restaurants that have complained. “There will come a day when cigarettes will be obsolete, like high-button shoes,” he said. “It would have been a positive step forward to keep the no-smoking thing.”

Ansdell’s proposal to create smoking and nonsmoking areas failed to gain support because Stone and Pendleton contend it does not protect people from drifting smoke, and Gilson and Cleveland believe that business owners should set their own smoking policies.

Gilson, who said she believes “the majority of the people didn’t want this ordinance in 1991,” suggested that the city survey businesses and publish a directory of establishments that will remain smoke-free.

The councilwoman said she conducted a mail survey of 200 businesses in which 30 of the 52 that responded wanted the no-smoking ordinance repealed. Stone, however, disputed her figures.

The ordinance appeared headed for modification or repeal after the April election of Gilson and Cleveland, who had made the law a campaign issue. In the same contest, voters rejected incumbents Randy Bomgaars, a staunch supporter of the smoking ban, and Joseph E. Cvetko.

Although Cvetko and Ansdell initially voted for the ordinance, they later tried unsuccessfully to modify it by providing nonsmoking and smoking areas. The original ordinance excluded bars, tobacco stores, private offices, residences and places of worship from the smoking ban.

Though the historic ordinance finally crumbled Monday, it was not for lack of a long fight by people who supported it.

Before the council meeting, more than 30 children, some in Pathfinder Club uniforms, paraded in front of City Hall with posters carrying such messages as “Second Hand Smoke Is No Joke,” “Don’t Let Your Dinner Be an Ashtray” and “Healthy Lungs Not Smoky Lungs.”

They took their posters inside, and some of the children spoke during the two-hour session.

“I can’t vote, but that doesn’t mean that smoke does not harm me,” 13-year-old Brenna Bagwell said. “We want clean air, and we want it now.”

The council heard from representatives of health-related organizations, including Alan Zovar, coordinator of the Task Force for Safe and Healthful Air, which is made up of 33 health and environmental organizations.

“Environmental tobacco smoke is 100% proven to be a cause of disease, disability and death in the nonsmoker. Increased exposure equals increased risk,” he said, adding that 53,000 nonsmokers die from secondhand smoke each year.”

Others urged that Bellflower remain in the ranks of cities that have banned smoking.