Pasadena City Council Bans Smoking in Restaurants

Undaunted by a challenge to Los Angeles’ anti-smoking ordinance, the Pasadena City Council on Tuesday night passed its own ban on smoking in restaurants.

In Long Beach, council members were considering a similar ban late Tuesday.

Pasadena’s compromise ordinance, adopted 4 to 2 after a series of other proposals went down to defeat in contentious debates, calls for all restaurants to be smoke-free. Bars attached to restaurants would have a year to phase in the ban. Once the ordinance is drawn up by the city attorney, it could go into effect as early as mid-September.

The restaurant smoking ban extends a prohibition against smoking in public buildings and work places enacted in April, 1992.

The City Council considered banning smoking in restaurants then but backed down when local restaurateurs complained of Big Brother meddling in their businesses. Many warned that imposing the ban would give competitors in neighboring cities, such as Los Angeles, an unfair advantage in the midst of a recession.

But there was surprisingly little opposition from restaurant owners this week, although some continued to complain Tuesday that the ordinance interfered with free enterprise and that it placed them at a competitive disadvantage.

“If we’re the only city within 100 miles that has this sort of ordinance,” said Chipper Pastron, co-owner of Rose City Diner and Market City Cafe, “I think it’s going to be an undue hardship for some businesses.”

But the Pasadena Restaurant Assn., an alliance of about 200 local businesses, took no stand on the issue this time, and leading members of the group, including its president and past president, have recently imposed smoking bans in their own restaurants.

At least 17 Pasadena restaurants have imposed their own smoking bans.

Several restaurant owners and managers said they had been concerned about potential health costs to both customers and employees, citing a report last January by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that classified secondhand smoke as a Class A carcinogen.

City health officials said 121 Pasadena residents die annually from the effects of secondhand smoke.

“The big difference this year was the EPA report,” said Michael Hawkins, owner of the Green Street Restaurant. “It’s a little difficult for me to argue for smoking when I have that report sitting there.”

Hawkins, a leading opponent of the smoking ban last year, made his own restaurant smoke-free this year.

Others cited the potential costs from lawsuits and workers’ compensation claims. At least two California workers have received compensation benefits of as much as $30,000 for health problems caused by secondhand smoke in recent years. And the owner of two restaurants said a sharp drop in the number of smoking-section seating requests led her to ban smoking altogether.

The main complaint from Pasadena restaurateurs concerned the ban’s effect on bars and pool establishments. The City Council deadlocked 3 to 3 last week on whether to include bars in the ban, but that issued was addressed in Tuesday’s vote.

The Los Angeles measure was put on hold Saturday when a coalition of restaurateurs filed petitions with more than 96,000 signatures of residents opposed to the ban. The measure is expected to be on the June, 1994, city ballot.

State law provides for residents to hold referendums on local ordinances if they get sufficient numbers of signatures, but no one at Pasadena’s meeting spoke publicly about mounting such a drive Tuesday.

In Long Beach, council members--none of whom smoke--tentatively approved a smoking ban in restaurants and other enclosed public places 8 to 0 last week.

Restaurant owners said they have no formal plan to challenge the proposed ordinance. But sources said a pro-smoking group, the California Business and Restaurant Alliance, has begun organizing.

If given final council approval, as was expected, and signed by Mayor Ernie Kell within 10 days of adoption, the Long Beach ordinance would ban smoking in restaurants and require that two-thirds of the seating in bars and outdoor eating areas be reserved for nonsmokers. It also would make cafeterias, bowling alleys, bingo parlors, hair salons, hotel lobbies and other public places smoke-free zones.

Cigarette vending machines would be prohibited in areas open to people under the age of 21. There would be a $50 fine for violations. The measure would take effect 30 days after being signed by the mayor.

A petition drive to challenge the ordinance would have to gather about 18,000 signatures from registered voters before the ban goes into effect, a city official said.

If that were to happen, the ordinance would be suspended and the City Council would have to decide whether to repeal it or put the issue on the April 12, 1994, city ballot.

City Council members said early Tuesday that they hoped there would be no challenge and that they would accomplish what they first set out to do two years ago.