High Theatrics in Smoking Ban Debate : Politics: Restaurant group uses horse-drawn buggy for benefit of TV cameras. Councilman Braude labels them ‘sponsors of death.’

The last time Los Angeles tried to ban smoking in its restaurants, angry restaurateurs descended upon City Hall wielding not brickbats but baguettes.

This time they took to the streets with a red buggy, two Belgian mares the color of cafe au lait (this was, after all, the Westside), several ominous predictions and stacks of petitions aimed at extinguishing an ordinance that would ban smoking in Los Angeles eateries as of Monday.

Who could blame them?

“A waiter in Sacramento told a patron he couldn’t smoke in the restaurant and was stabbed to death with a steak knife,” Brian Reed, vice president of the Los Angeles Hospitality Coalition that is leading the smokers’ rights fight, said solemnly.

So began Act II of the Great Smoke Debate, a drama threatening to become the longest-running show since “A Chorus Line.”

Friday’s installment began with Councilman Marvin Braude, who has led a 15-year campaign for the ban, branding his opponents “sponsors of death.”

“In all the time we waste, people are dying,” the usually reserved councilman thundered at a morning news conference as City Hall waited for the hospitality coalition to deliver 58,275 signatures they said would invalidate the ordinance until the question is put to the voters.

The “sponsors of death” did not look all that sinister as they lined up for a news conference at the Sofitel Ma Maison across the street from the Beverly Center to plead their case: The cash-strapped city stands to lose untold millions of dollars from tourists who will go to Florida rather than be told where and when they can smoke while dining in Los Angeles. Even local patrons would rather go the extra mile to Beverly Hills or Glendale to smoke in peace, they said.

“Whether we like it or not, foreigners still smoke,” Richard Schilling, Ma Maison’s general manager, said indignantly, standing shoulder to shoulder with representatives of the Los Angeles Hilton and Towers, Boulevard Cafe, Regent Beverly Wilshire, Jimmy’s and several other swanky spots.

“We are not opposed to a ban on smoking. We are opposed to a ban on smoking in Los Angeles,” one restaurateur said, arguing that the only fair ban is a nationwide ban that keep Los Angeles businesses on an even playing field.

As if to confirm their worst fears, one Beverly Hills restaurant was said to be cooking up a “cigar night” that would invite all shunned Los Angeles smokers to puff away, unmolested.

Reporters started asking how much of the coalition’s support came from the tobacco industry. The restaurateurs said they did not know, but that wasn’t the point, anyway. Civil rights was the point. Never mind that 80% of Californians, and 75% of the U.S. population, are nonsmokers. This, they warned, was the first in a long parade of encroachments, a point they attempted to illustrate with three huge banners slung outside the hotel: “First Smoking, Then Drinking, Then Mashed Potatoes.”

Mashed potatoes? When was the last time anyone got lung cancer from sitting next to someone eating mashed potatoes? they were asked.

“Let’s not kid ourselves. We don’t live in Switzerland,” Schilling, a smoker, said. “The city is full of smog. The city has more problems to resolve than this one. The air is not fresh and pure. Let’s not (blame) the cigarette for everything.”

After some more talk about threatened profits, Big Brother and the “negative impact on the flow of foreigners,” the restaurateurs marched outside carrying what they said were 100,000 signatures of people opposed to the ban--far more than the 58,275 needed.

But this was theater, and simply dropping off the petitions at the city clerk’s office lacked pizazz. So the restaurateurs hired a horse and buggy at $250 an hour. The smoking ban opponents clambered aboard the buggy and Cute and Floss were hitched up for what was supposed to be a long and symbolic trot to City Hall to file the documents.

Once out of sight of the television cameras, the restaurateurs hopped off the buggy, got in their cars and drove away. Cute and Floss were paraded back into their trailer and the petitions went nowhere.

The signatures must be verified as those of registered Los Angeles city voters in order for the referendum to qualify for the ballot. A vote is not likely to be taken until next June, indicating that the bluster from both sides is not over.

As the curtain went down Friday, things were headed for a dramatic matinee today. The restaurant group has until noon to file its signatures.

But the other side was urging anyone who signed a petition by mistake to get out of it via fax machine. Until noon, Braude said, people can demand that their names be stricken by faxing a request to (213) 237-2779.

Times staff writer James Rainey contributed to this story.