City Council Votes to Place Smoking Ban on Ballot : Ordinance: The city attorney is directed to draft an interim measure to toughen current smoking restrictions pending the election.

Long Beach voters will have a chance to clear the air on April 12.

Dealt setback after setback by smokers’ rights forces funded by the tobacco industry, the City Council decided Tuesday to place the city’s beleaguered anti-smoking ordinance on the municipal ballot.

The council, composed entirely of nonsmokers, is expected to give its final approval Oct. 26 to put the issue before voters in April.

The ordinance would ban smoking in restaurants, cafeterias, bowling alleys, bingo parlors, hair salons and other public places. It also would require that two-thirds of seating in bars and outdoor eating areas be set aside for nonsmokers.

The City Council approved the ordinance in July. But a petition drive staged by the Long Beach Business & Convention Coalition--funded by the tobacco industry--collected enough signatures to block the ban from taking effect.

That left the council with limited choices: Repeal the ordinance, change it or put it on the ballot.

“We must get this on the ballot,” Councilman Warren Harwood said Tuesday. “There’s no dancing around the subject.”

The council also directed City Atty. John R. Calhoun to draft an interim ordinance to toughen the city’s current smoking restrictions pending the election.

The interim ordinance would limit smoking to one-fifth of the seating in restaurants and bars. Smoking is now limited to one-third of the seating areas in restaurants. There are no smoking restrictions for bars.

If the council approves the interim ordinance as expected, it would take effect Dec. 3 and remain in place if voters reject the more stringent measure in April.

Some of the council members said they decided to turn to the city’s voters because they were tired of being pushed around by smokers’ rights forces for the past two years.

The council passed an ordinance in 1991 to ban smoking in restaurants. But the council backed down after a petition drive backed by the tobacco industry collected enough signatures to put the issue to a vote. The council then approved the current ordinance that allows limited smoking in restaurants.

Councilman Evan Anderson Braude, backed by the anti-smoking group Coalition for a Smoke-Free Long Beach, brought the issue back to the council last summer.

While some local restaurateurs and the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce opposed the ordinance, the petition drive against it was organized by a Santa Monica-based organization calling itself the Long Beach Business & Convention Coalition. Coalition officials did not return calls for comment on the council’s actions Tuesday.

The coalition spent about $65,000 on the petition drive to keep the ordinance from taking effect on Aug. 28. So far, the group has received $85,000 from R.J. Reynolds, Philip Morris and other tobacco interests, according to a campaign disclosure statement.

City Clerk Shelba Powell reported Tuesday that a final count indicated the group had gathered 18,295 valid signatures, more than enough to qualify the referendum for the ballot.

The council then debated its options.

Braude proposed a more stringent ordinance, which would have banned smoking in restaurants beginning Jan. 1, and eventually would have prohibited puffing in bars.

But the council majority rejected that option, saying smokers’ rights forces would stage another petition drive to keep it from taking effect.

The council voted 4 to 3 to let voters decide the issue.

“I’d like to see it go to the ballot,” Councilman Tom Clark said. “I think the people are sick and tired of this arrogance (of the tobacco industry).”

Councilmen Douglas S. Drummond and Alan S. Lowenthal joined Harwood and Clark in the majority.

Vice Mayor Jeffrey A. Kellogg, Braude and Councilman Les Robbins voted against putting the measure on the ballot. Council members Ray Grabinski and Doris Topsy-Elvord were absent.

Kellogg said he feared the tobacco industry would spend so much money campaigning that the ordinance would face almost sure defeat.

“I think we’ll see our mailboxes stuffed full of propaganda,” Kellogg said.

But anti-smoking forces noted that voters in Sacramento and several other cities have upheld similar ordinances despite strong opposition.