CALABASAS : Smoking Banned in Most Public Places

The Calabasas City Council has given final approval to a law that snuffs out smoking in restaurants and most public places.

By a unanimous vote, the council Wednesday night voted without comment to ban smoking inside stores, restaurants and other buildings open to the public, except bars, bar sections of restaurants, hotel rooms and tobacco shops.

The ordinance, which takes effect Oct. 22, also requires managers of other workplaces to designate nonsmoking areas.

Mayor Marvin Lopata, who proposed the ordinance, said the ban comes in response to a growing health consciousness in Calabasas.

“We need to take care of ourselves,” Lopata said. “Smoking is abusive to those who are smoking, as well as those who aren’t. I’ve never been a smoker, and I resent being in a place where someone else is smoking, because then I have to breathe the smoke.”

The timing of the law, he said, was due partly to a watershed smoking ban approved for restaurants in Los Angeles and partly to an agreement between himself and Mayor Ed Kurtz of Agoura Hills, which approved a restaurant smoking ban last month.

In other action, the council also gave preliminary approval to a measure designed to increase water conservation by requiring that highly efficient sprinklers be included in all new landscaping.

The proposed ordinance, which will be returned to the council for a final vote Oct. 6, would bring the city into compliance with state conservation guidelines.

It is a less stringent version of an earlier proposal that would also have required drought-resistant plants in all new commercial and residential yards.

The ordinance was supported despite concerns from Councilwoman Karyn Foley that enforcement of the law may be difficult in cases where an existing yard is re-landscaped, because homeowners are usually not required to file plans for yard changes with the city, Planning Director Steve Harris said.