Suit by Restaurateurs Challenges City on Smoking Ban : Courts: Officials wrongly disqualified a referendum on the matter, group says. At issue is whether signature gatherers must be registered L.A. voters.

Restaurateurs opposed to the new Los Angeles ban on smoking in their businesses filed a lawsuit Tuesday accusing the city of depriving voters of the right to decide the issue at the ballot box.

A court hearing is not expected until Thursday.

The long-contested ban went into effect Monday when city officials determined that a coalition of restaurant owners had failed to gather enough valid signatures in a drive to put the issue before voters.

The Los Angeles Hospitality Coalition, the restaurant group formed to fight the ban, contends in a Superior Court lawsuit that the city improperly invalidated a number of petitions because the signature gatherers were not registered voters in the city of Los Angeles.

Deputy City Atty. Kenneth Cirlin had not seen the lawsuit and could not respond in detail, but said city law is clear: Signatures are not to be counted if gathered by someone who is not a registered city voter.

But Dana Reed, attorney for the coalition, contended that the requirement that signature gatherers be registered voters of the city not only runs counter to the practice for qualifying state ballot measures but also violates the right of citizens under the U.S. Constitution to petition the government. The city requirement has never been tested in the courts.

Reed said at a news conference Tuesday on the County Courthouse steps that the state and U.S. constitutions prohibit the city from invalidating signatures of “otherwise qualified voters simply because the circulator was not registered to vote in the city.”

Reed contended that the city may even be mistaken about the registration status of the signature gatherers. Workers from the professional signature-gathering firm hired by the coalition were at the county registrar of voters’ office Tuesday checking the voter rolls.

City elections chief Kris Heffron said Tuesday, “We will stand by the fact that as of the time we checked the registration record, we were not able to find registrations on file for those circulators.” She said the petition sponsors have 30 days to “bring us proof” that the signature gatherers are registered to vote in Los Angeles.

But even if the signature gatherers are not registered in Los Angeles, Reed said the city has disenfranchised the registered voters who signed the petition.

When the group submitted 97,572 signatures on July 24, it appeared to have met the requirement of 58,275 signatures to place the anti-smoking law on the ballot.

But in taking a 5% sample of the signatures, the city clerk’s office Monday reported that fewer than 43% of the signatures were valid. The number was so low that the clerk was not required by the City Charter to count the balance of the signatures, city officials said.

About 1,100 signatures were invalidated because the signature gatherers were not registered to vote in Los Angeles, according to city officials.