LAGUNA HILLS : Smoking Ban Special for Council Member

Banning smoking in the city is more than just a personal mission for City Councilman R. Craig Scott. It’s professional.

“It’s been of interest to me professionally for a long time,” said Scott, a labor lawyer who represents and counsels employers. “I’m trying to help employers limit or eliminate workplace liability.”

Scott was the driving force behind Laguna Hills’ strict new smoking ban, which was approved by the City Council earlier this month and goes into effect Sept. 23.

He proposed such a ban last year and chaired a council-appointed committee that crafted the ordinance that will outlaw smoking in virtually all indoor public places, except bars.

Although the ban seems to have been met with widespread approval from the city’s residents, a few restaurant owners and local chambers of commerce pleaded for a variance, arguing that the ordinance will drive away customers.

Despite Scott’s objection, the council relented to a degree, voting to phase in the ban in restaurants over 12 months.

Throughout the debate, Scott reminded his council colleagues and the business people that restaurants are not just eating establishments but workplaces too.

He pointed to studies showing that, because of exposure to secondhand smoke, working as a waitress is the most hazardous occupation for a woman in California.

“Sometimes we forget that restaurants are places of employment,” he said. “I don’t want to see where a restaurant owner subjects an employee to a smoke-filled environment because we granted his restaurant a variance.”

As an attorney, Scott carries the same message to his clients. He has lectured and written newsletters and a small-business magazine article on the subject over the last eight years.

“No employer would knowingly expose a worker to asbestos, and we shouldn’t be exposing people to cigarette smoke,” Scott said.

His argument was bolstered earlier this year by the Environmental Protection Agency, which found secondhand smoke to be a Class A carcinogen, meaning there is no safe level of exposure.

Scott’s strong feelings about smoking, however, are personal, too. Tobacco smoke wafting through the air makes him choke and sneeze, he said.

And even if there were no health risks from secondhand smoke, he believes it should be prohibited indoors for the sake of politeness, if nothing else.

“I hated it when, as a young lawyer, I had to breathe the cigar smoke of a senior partner in the law library,” he said.

Scott, 40, is the father of eight children. “I suppose that’s one of the motivations too,” he said, holding up a family picture on his office desk. “I would hope they wouldn’t have to be subjected” to smoke-filled rooms.

Although his practice deals mainly with keeping employers free from lawsuits, when it comes to the issue of smoking, Scott is eager to make his case in court.

“I would love to take a plaintiff’s case,” he said. “There are some incredible stories of employees being subjected to smoking.”