Obscure Law Used to Fight Smoking Ban : Business: Coalition employs clause in charter in effort to delay measure. Group must gather 58,275 signatures by July 24.

Calling it a matter of business and not smoking, a new group of Los Angeles restaurant and hotel operators launched a petition drive Friday that would put the city’s restaurant smoking ban on hold until voters decide its fate.

The Los Angeles Hospitality Coalition, arguing that the ban will chase customers to out-of-town competitors at a time when business is already tight, is trying to gather the required 58,275 signatures by July 24--the deadline for delaying the ban, which was signed into law last month. Under a little-known provision in the City Charter, an ordinance can be put on hold if enough signatures are gathered within 30 days of passage to challenge it at the polls.

Coalition leaders hope to put the issue to voters as early as November or force the City Council to repeal or ease the ban.

“This is more than a smoking issue. This is a competitiveness and business issue. We believe Los Angeles is experimenting on us,” said Brian Reed, general manager of Delmonico’s Seafood Grille, an upscale restaurant near the Beverly Hills-Los Angeles border.

Reed said he fears losing business to a hotel across the street in Beverly Hills, where the City Council last week brushed aside a suggestion to join an effort to ban restaurant smoking in Westside cities that have been described as havens for smokers fleeing Los Angeles establishments. The West Hollywood City Council will take up a proposed ban next week and Santa Monica is drawing up its own no-smoking law.

In coming weeks, diners will be asked to sign the petitions in restaurants all over Los Angeles, Reed said. The coalition, which includes about 15 businesses ranging from down-home restaurants to ritzy hotels, hopes to win at the polls in a battle it lost in City Hall. The Los Angeles City Council approved the ban on smoking in the city’s 7,000 restaurants--making it the biggest city in the country with a smoking ban--after intense lobbying by the restaurant and tobacco industries and a lengthy effort by Councilman Marvin Braude, an ardent smoking opponent.

The law requires indoor restaurants to post no-smoking signs. Violators could face a misdemeanor charge carrying a punishment of up to six months in jail or a $1,000 fine. The law exempts outdoor dining areas, private clubs, bars and bar sections of restaurants.

Opponents say the ban would chase smokers to cities without prohibitions, further hurting a local hospitality industry already laboring under a stubborn recession and fierce, nationwide competition for tourism dollars.

Braude charged that the coalition is acting as a front for the tobacco industry and said there is no evidence that the smoking ban would hurt business. “We’re in a recession,” Braude said. “They’re looking for scapegoats and they’re trying to blame it on nonsmoking.”

Braude said the health benefits of the ban might draw travelers to Los Angeles and spur similar laws in big cities across the country.

It is unclear how much support the coalition can get from the four new members of the City Council. Mayor Richard Riordan has said he would not veto a ban.

Meanwhile, the coalition is backing a state Assembly bill, sponsored by Assemblyman Curtis Tucker Jr. (D-Inglewood) and supported by the tobacco industry, that would allow restaurant owners to designate smoking areas but prevent cities from enacting new smoking bans. A competing bill, sponsored by Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Brentwood), would limit smoking in all indoor workplaces, including restaurants.

The West Hollywood City Council will consider a restaurant smoking ban that would be implemented as long as Beverly Hills and Santa Monica go along. Although passage of some kind of smoking ban appears likely in liberal Santa Monica, the Beverly Hills City Council opted to delay dealing with the issue until the fate of the proposed statewide measures is known. In 1987, Beverly Hills backed away from a stiff restaurant smoking ban after owners complained that it was hurting business.