Smoking Ban in Anaheim City Facilities Given 1st OK : Health: Stadium, arena, all public buildings included. Final approval expected Tuesday.

An ordinance banning smoking in the seating area at Anaheim Stadium and throughout the soon-to-be-completed Anaheim Arena received tentative approval Tuesday from the City Council.

The ban, proposed by Councilman Irv Pickler, also forbids smoking in all other city-owned buildings, including City Hall and police and fire stations. Exempted from the ordinance are offices rented in city buildings by private firms, such as those used by the Anaheim Visitor and Convention Bureau at the Anaheim Convention Center and those occupied by the California Angels and Los Angeles Rams at the stadium.

The council voted 4 to 0 for the ban. Councilman Frank Feldhaus was absent. The ordinance returns for final approval on Tuesday, but final approvals usually pass routinely.

Tuesday’s action came one day after Gov. Pete Wilson issued an executive order banning smoking in most state-owned buildings and facilities.

“This is the first step of what we need to accomplish, which is the abolition of all (sources) of secondhand smoke,” Pickler said. “I don’t care if some people want to puff themselves to death, but I don’t want to be around them.”

No one spoke against the ban.

Sharon Ericson, president of the Anaheim Municipal Employees Assn., the city’s largest employees union, said that she once hoped a room and a patio could be set aside at City Hall for smokers but that the city’s budget problems make that impossible.

Under the ordinance, smoking inside the stadium will only be allowed on the concourses, ramps and, if the owner consents, in luxury boxes. If enacted, Anaheim Stadium will join ballparks in San Diego, Baltimore, Detroit, Oakland, Toronto and Irving, Tex., the home of the Dallas Cowboys, as the only outdoor major league stadiums prohibiting smoking in seating areas.

Most indoor arenas, including the Great Western Forum in Inglewood, prohibit smoking or restrict it to lobbies.

Angels and Ram officials said their organizations support the ordinance.

Rams officials said that as tenants they will do whatever the city wants. Angels officials cited reports that secondhand smoke can cause cancer and other illnesses in nonsmokers.

“During the last two or three years we have received numerous complaints from people about smoking,” Angels publicist Tim Mead said. “People have argued about the effects of smoking on others for years, but that is no longer a debatable point. We’re talking about the health of our fans.”

The Angels experimented for several years with a no-smoking, no-drinking “family section” on the field level behind the left-field fence but dropped the program last year because the tickets were a tough sell. The section accounted for about 2% of the team’s ticket sales, Mead said.

“Frankly, (the seats) were not in a good location,” Mead said.

The city backed away, however, from an earlier proposal that would have banned cigarette advertising at the stadium, convention center and arena. The manufacturer of Marlboro cigarettes has five and 10 years remaining on two leases for one interior and three exterior billboards at the stadium.

Those billboards generate $350,000 annually for the city and another $200,000 which is divided among the Angels, Rams, the company that sells the advertising and Sony Corp., which built the stadium scoreboard. Total billboard revenue at the stadium is $3 million annually.

City Atty. Jack L. White said that proposal was dropped because the contracts with Marlboro are binding.