Tobacco Industry Tied to Smoking Ban Opposition

Soon after the Solana Beach City Council moved to ban smoking in public spaces, local restaurant owners began receiving literature filled with horror stories about the impact of smoking ordinances on businesses from a little-known group called the California Business and Restaurant Alliance.

Customers who smoke will switch to restaurants in other cities, the notices warned. Smoking ordinances elsewhere have been the legislative equivalent of hurricanes, decimating local businesses and forcing restaurant after restaurant to close, according to the flyers.

The campaign had the desired effect. Local restaurant owners flocked to council meetings last month to protest the total ban. It was approved with minor modifications and goes into effect in September.

In the wake of the debate, local business owners praised the support of the California Business and Restaurant Alliance as “helpful” and “informative.”

But what is the California Business and Restaurant Alliance?

Questioned by Solana Beach Councilman Richard Hendlin during open session, local restaurant owners acknowledged that they had never heard of the group before the smoking issue arose, they were not members and they had no idea what, if anything, it had to do with the restaurant industry.

Despite its name, the California Business and Restaurant Alliance reportedly has little connection to the restaurant business. According to anti-smoking activists, the group is one of several organizations with similarly innocuous names set up by the tobacco industry to fight smoking ordinances in cities throughout California.

The California Business and Restaurant Alliance “is basically a front group for (tobacco giant) Philip Morris,” said Julia Carol, spokeswoman for Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights.

CBRA President Fred Karger doesn’t deny that his group receives funding from the tobacco industry.

“We have sought support from the tobacco industry, and we would like more,” Karger said.

But he said most of the organization’s funding comes from “voluntary dues donations” from the “several hundred” restaurants, hotels and businesses that have joined the group. Karger said accusations about CBRA’s relationship to the tobacco industry and other groups is “changing the subject.”

“They (anti-smoking groups) don’t like to talk about the fact that these ordinances have failed,” said Karger. “They can point all the fingers they want, but all they’re trying to do is change the subject.”

The CBRA’s activities have upset several local City Council members, as well as legislators throughout the state, who believe the group operates without accurately representing itself or its background. The CBRA is not registered with the state as a lobbying group. Its representatives rarely make public statements and don’t directly contact legislators, beyond having others send them letters or information packages.

“I find it reprehensible that they didn’t represent themselves appropriately,” said Del Mar City Councilman Henry Abarbanel, who raised the issue of a smoking ordinance in Del Mar. “They have every right to express their opinion, but to not come forward and announce their affiliation and who is supporting them is deceiving the public.”

At each Solana Beach council meeting when the smoking ordinance was discussed, the group’s representative, Michelle Wright, sat in the back of the council chambers, taking notes and conferring with restaurant owners who opposed the ordinance. When the Del Mar City Council began discussing a similar ordinance last month, Wright again was present, huddling with restaurant owners, discussing strategy.

But Wright never spoke to either council. Even when Solana Councilman Hendlin questioned restaurant owners about the organization, bluntly accusing the group of spreading false information and shilling for the tobacco industry, Wright sat placidly in the back of the room.

“We find we’re more successful if (business owners) are the ones carrying the message,” Karger said.

The primary function of the year-old group is to be a “resource” for business owners, he said, adding that the group openly organizes business owners and, when asked, willingly discusses its ties to the tobacco industry.

“We’re hardly hiding,” Karger said.

Karger is also executive vice president of the Dolphin Group, a large Los Angeles- and Sacramento-based public relations and political consulting firm that lists tobacco giant Philip Morris as one of its main clients. The CBRA and the Dolphin Group have offices in the same Los Angeles building.

Dolphin and Karger simply established the CBRA as a way of helping Philip Morris lobby against smoking ordinances without the tobacco company being directly linked to the effort, critics charge.

A Philip Morris spokeswoman confirmed that the tobacco company employs Dolphin, and that it is a “member” of the CBRA, but denied that it had established the group.

“As a corporate citizen, Philip Morris belongs to many statewide organizations,” said Karen Daragan of Philip Morris.

CBRA was incorporated by the state as a nonprofit group in June, 1991, with Karger listed as president. Karger has worked on a variety of conservative and Republican causes, including serving as deputy campaign director of the Deukmejian for Governor campaign in 1982 and heading groups that campaigned against the reelection bid of California Supreme Court Chief Justice Rose Bird and the “Big Green” initiative.

According to its approved application for tax-exemption status on file with the state Franchise Tax Board, its stated purpose is “to promote the social welfare of business owners” and to “apprise the public about issues of interest to business, individuals, hotels and restaurants.” There is no mention in the application of smoking ordinances.

But a CBRA flyer says it was organized “in response to proposed city ordinances which would ban smoking in public places.” In fact, Karger said, “we take on some other local issues, but primarily restrictive smoking ordinances.”

Despite the similarities in the name, the CBRA is not related to the California Restaurant Assn., which opposes most local ordinances but favors a statewide ban on smoking in all public places. Karger said the CBRA has “no position” on a statewide ban, since it prefers to work on local ordinances.

“Inadvertently or deliberately, there is confusion being caused” by the activities of the Business and Restaurant Alliance, said Jo-Linda Thompson, senior director of government affairs for the California Restaurant Assn. “We don’t know these people, and we’ve never spoken to them.”

According to groups that support smoking ordinances, the CBRA is one of several tobacco industry-supported groups working behind the scenes in cities where smoking ordinances are proposed. Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, an anti-smoking lobbying organization that tracks groups with ties to the tobacco industry, charges that CBRA is related to Restaurants for a Sensible Voluntary Policy, which successfully campaigned against a smoking ordinance in Beverly Hills, and Cal-Stop, a new organization.

Although Karger denies any connection to the group, Julia Carol of Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights says RSVP founder Rudy Cole gave start-up advice to the CBRA. Cal-Stop, the group says, also appears to have been established by Dolphin, and its offices are down the hall from Dolphin’s Sacramento headquarters.

“Once they’ve worn out their welcome, they’ll come back with another (group) with a different name,” Carol said.

Calls to Cal-Stop’s Sacramento office went unanswered, and Cole could not be reached for comment. But last year Cole told the Contra Costa Times that the “witch hunt” to find the funding sources of these groups is a smoke screen to obscure the real issues.

“It’s much easier to attack the source of money than the rationale of the argument,” Cole said.

However, critics counter that it is the tobacco industry that is clouding the issue by using these groups with vaguely worded names to go into cities to fight smoking restrictions. It is all part of an orchestrated campaign, they say.

Representatives of the groups have consistently denied that they are officially connected, though the groups share similar goals and operating procedures.

In the Northern California city of Oroville, population 12,000, a group called Californians for Fair Business Policy, which has acknowledged receiving money from the tobacco industry, spent about $20,000 to defeat a 100% ban on smoking in public places. In addition to money, information and organizational skills, the group supplied opponents of the smoking ordinance with detailed petitions that met the city’s rigid standards, said former Mayor Susan Sears.

The CBRA has fought ordinances in Walnut Creek and Oakland, among other cities. Karger said he and CBRA also worked against the smoking ordinance in Oroville, which was “the most unpopular thing” in the city.

In Solana Beach, the group gave restaurant owners several letters from legislators who opposed bans in other cities. They provided packets half-an-inch thick full of information attempting to refute studies reporting that smoking ordinances have had little effect on business.

“They (the CBRA) go around with terrorist tactics, in my opinion, telling horror stories about smoking ordinances and they’re not forced to prove the information they’ve given out,” said Solana Beach Mayor Celine Olson.

City Councilman Paul Tompkins said he spent nine months discussing the ordinance with the Solana Beach Chamber of Commerce without hearing many complaints from restaurateurs until the CBRA started organizing local business owners.

“It bothers me that some outside agency that is totally biased goes in and incites the business owners,” he said.

Del Mar’s City Council was only staging a preliminary discussion last month to decide whether to place discussion of a smoking ordinance on a future agenda. Nevertheless, several restaurant owners, organized by Wright through a local merchant’s group, appeared at the meeting, armed with CBRA data, to oppose the concept.

Carlos and Annie’s owner Chuck Benson said he opposed a smoking ordinance on the grounds that it could damage business, but he was upset to learn after the meeting about the CBRA’s ties to tobacco industry.

“I don’t want to be a mouthpiece for the American tobacco industry,” Benson said.

When pressed by restaurant owners, the group’s representatives acknowledge that it receives money from tobacco companies.

“They were very up-front and never tried to hide” their connection to the tobacco industry, said Dave Hodges, owner of the Belly Up Tavern and opponent of the Solana Beach smoking ordinance.

Wright did much of the legwork for Solana Beach restaurant owners opposed to the ordinance, handing out flyers and making sure restaurant owners attended council meetings, Hodges said. Local restaurant owners were asked to consider membership in the group, but Hodges said he never received further information from them.

“I appreciated their input and effort, but I’m not a supporter of the tobacco industry,” said Hodges, adding that the Solana Beach council also relied on information from special-interest groups supporting smoking ordinances such as the American Heart Assn.

Solana Beach Chamber of Commerce President Jim Ellis said he “welcomed” the group’s support.

“They were very helpful,” Ellis said. “They said they did get some tobacco industry funding, but that they requested it.”

Ellis said the group’s ties to tobacco companies shouldn’t obscure the issues.

“It’s a mistake for the city to think that the restaurant owners weren’t up in arms on their own,” Ellis said. “They weren’t being manipulated.”

But Solana Beach Councilman Hendlin argues that that is exactly what the CBRA is doing--manipulating restaurant owners, using them to further the tobacco industry cause.

“It is a transparent attempt,” Hendlin said, “to use local restaurant owners to promote not the restaurant owner’s best interests, but rather the tobacco industry’s best interests, to continue to peddle their deadly product.”