4 Malls Plan to Snuff Out Smoking : Health: The West Valley centers will designate special areas outside the enclosed retail sites. Officials say a survey shows most customers back a ban.

Citing the harmful effects of secondhand smoke and suggestion boxes crammed with complaints, four west San Fernando Valley malls are going cold turkey and will ban smoking beginning Sept. 1, including the one center that devoted a special area to smokers.

Topanga Plaza, Northridge Fashion Center, Fallbrook Mall and the Promenade at Woodland Hills confirmed Monday that the no-smoking policy would go into effect next month, the result of discussions among the mall managers that began in mid-June, said Kimberly D. Solomon, general manager of the tony 55-store Woodland Hills center.

“We’re responding to what the majority of our customers want to see, a smoke-free environment,” Solomon said, referring to comment cards left by mall customers.

Solomon said management at all four malls will provide designated smoking areas for both customers and employees outside the enclosed shopping area. An area set aside for smokers at the Northridge Fashion Center inside the mall will be shut down.

Solomon said she also sent letters to the Panorama Mall and the Fashion Square and Galleria malls in Sherman Oaks to urge them to join the no-smoking ban. The Panorama mall responded by imposing a smoking ban Aug. 9.

Mary Callahan, general manager of the Panorama Mall, said the ban came at a time when management has been encouraging its employees to take walks around the mall for exercise and adopt other healthy habits.

“When we received the memo (from Solomon) we discussed it and decided to act on it immediately,” Callahan said.

Damage from cigarettes extinguished on the mall floor also was a consideration, she said.

“The oak flooring in our mall was the icing on the cake,” she said.

Not all the malls, however, have reacted with the same enthusiasm.

At Fashion Square in Sherman Oaks, smokers can still puff away everywhere but in food courts on the first and second floor, said Sandy Turner, marketing director for the 40-store mall.

“The corporate decision was that we would remain as we are and follow any city ordinances,” Turner said.

Allen Oblow, general manager at the Burbank Media City Center, said he would monitor the law and take the recent decision by the West Valley malls under consideration. No one at the Sherman Oaks Galleria could be reached for comment.

Since the Los Angeles City Council passed an ordinance that banned smoking in all restaurants in late June, the issue of smoking in public places has spread across the city.

A similar debate is under way on the national level, said Richard Green, vice president of the International Council of Shopping Centers, a trade industry organization with more than 20,000 members.

“I know that it (smoking ban) is under consideration in New Jersey and a number of places around the country,” Green said. “Will it hurt business? We just don’t know.”

Some smokers resent another layer of pressure being added to a habit that’s rapidly losing popularity.

“I feel like if they gave me a filthy toilet in the corner, I’d be happy,” said Cindy Roop, 39, a Reseda resident and smoker of 23 years who was shopping at the Northridge Fashion Center.

Roop said she will not shop at a mall that pushes smokers outside, just as she avoids restaurants that don’t allow smoking--which, under a city ordinance that prohibits smoking in all dining rooms, is all of them.

“It’s not bitterness, but why would I support them in denying me my rights?” she asked.

People at the smokers’ bench on the first floor of the Northridge Fashion Center--the mall that set the area aside specifically for smokers--seemed uneasy with the news of yet more restrictions.

One man, when asked about the pending ban, put his cigarette out and apologized two weeks early.

For nonsmokers, the news came as a relief from the constant battle to dodge smoke in mall walkways.

“It’s a good thing,” said Nancy Rodgers, a Sun Valley resident who said she suffers from chronic bronchitis.

“If I’m near a smoker and walk into a cloud of smoke, it goes right into my lungs,” she said.

Susan Amadeo, a nonsmoker from Van Nuys, sat in the designated area for smokers at the Northridge mall, remaining pleasant as people puffed away around her.

“I feel like I’m invading their rights because this is a designated area,” she said. “They have rights just like we do, but it isn’t a healthy thing and I can move if it really bothers me, but children don’t have a choice.”