Tougher Simi Smoking Law Urged : Health: City will discuss whether a more restrictive ordinance for restaurants and workplaces should be adopted.

Smoking opponents want the Simi Valley City Council to follow Moorpark’s example and ban cigarette smoking in restaurants and workplaces.

After receiving numerous pleas to reduce second-hand cigarette smoke, Mayor Greg Stratton told city staff members Monday to schedule a public discussion on whether Simi Valley should strengthen its smoking law. The ordinance, which was adopted in 1987, now restricts smoking to designated areas in restaurants and office lunchrooms.

“We’ve had numerous letters and comments and calls,” Stratton said. “It’s something I want to do.”

Simi Valley’s smoking law review is expected to occur in September or October.

The move comes a month after Moorpark became the first city in Ventura County to ban smoking in nearly all indoor public places and work sites. Moorpark’s law allows smoking in bars and in a restaurant’s bar area, if it is sealed off from the dining room.

Since then, the Thousand Oaks City Council agreed to review its smoking law and Los Angeles banned smoking in its restaurants, excluding bar areas.

Ted Ottinger, a Simi Valley resident who is spearheading the city’s anti-smoking drive, said he believes it is an important public health issue.

“The more I researched the danger of second-hand smoke, the more I realized that Simi Valley’s ordinance is inadequate,” said Ottinger, a public school teacher in the San Fernando Valley’s North Hills. “From my reading of the Moorpark ordinance, it looks to be ideal.”

Simi Valley’s current law allows a restaurant to reserve up to 50% of its space for patrons who smoke.

It requires employers to provide nonsmoking areas in lunchrooms and lounges. Also, it allows employees to smoke at their work stations if the company does not believe other workers are adversely affected.

It is uncertain whether a majority of Simi Valley’s council members will vote to make this law as tough as Moorpark’s.

Councilwoman Sandi Webb said Tuesday that she opposes any further restrictions on smoking.

“The issue is property rights,” she said. “The owner of that restaurant, to me, has the right to say whether it’s smoking or nonsmoking.”

Webb said she is a former two-pack-a-day smoker who is now sensitive to the smell of cigarettes. But she objects to government intrusions on this issue.

“The marketplace is doing its job,” she said. “The customers are saying, ‘We don’t want smoking.’ Restaurants are slowly switching over. I see no reason to force them into it.”

The Simi Valley Chamber of Commerce has not taken a public stand on revising the smoking law. But chamber President Michael McCaffrey said his group generally opposes added government rules on issues such as smoking.

Still, Mayor Stratton said some restaurant owners want to ban smoking but are afraid of losing customers to their competitors. He said those owners would rather see the council impose a citywide ban, so that all restaurants will have to play by the same rules.

“There are people who think it’s anti-business,” Stratton said. “I don’t think it is.”

But even Stratton said he would not necessarily go as far as Moorpark. In Moorpark, the new law requires a restaurant to have a physical barrier and a separate ventilation system separating the dining room from a bar area, where smoking is allowed.

“I want it to be effective but not cumbersome,” the mayor said.

Throughout California, 70 cities already ban smoking in restaurants, said Alan Zovar, an Oak Park resident who is coordinator of the regionwide Task Force for Safe and Healthful Air. He said the task force, a coalition of 33 health and environmental groups, lobbied for the tougher Los Angeles smoking law.

Zovar, who urged Simi Valley leaders to further restrict smoking in public, said many Southern California cities are moving in that direction.

“When it comes down simplifying the issue, safe air is good for our health, safe air is good for business and safe air makes good political sense,” he said.