City Leaves Smoking Ban Up in the Air : Regulation: Debate heats up over harshness of rules in bars and restaurants. A final decision is put off until next week.

Lou Moench bucked tradition three years ago by banning smoking at his successful Santa Monica tavern, Father’s Office. Now, the former three-pack-a-day man is urging the rest of the city to kick the habit and join him.

Moench was one of more than two dozen people offering advice Tuesday night, as the Santa Monica City Council grappled with how tough to make its law against smoking in restaurants.

The dangers from secondhand smoke went all but undisputed. It was balancing people’s health risks against the precarious economic health of restaurants and bars that was at issue.

The key question is whether to mirror the Los Angeles ordinance or to up the ante with an all-out ban on smoking in both restaurant bars and free - standing bars. The Los Angeles law allows smoking in free-standing bars and is ambiguous about open bars in restaurants, officials said.

For now, that question will go unanswered. The council put off a decision until next week, over the strenuous objections of Councilmen Kelly Olsen and Ken Genser. Both are pushing for a law that goes further than Los Angeles to protect the health of workers and patrons.

Olsen accused his colleagues of intending to decide in favor of the restaurateurs by enacting only a partial ban, but of lacking the “guts” to do so in front of an audience containing numerous doctors and other nonsmoking advocates.

In response, several council members cited the need to finish the meeting on time, as well as the need for time to study newly received material on what other cities are doing.

But Olsen insisted the evidence on the dangers of smoking were compelling enough to act right away.

The restaurateurs who spoke urged the council to follow the Los Angeles model, for fear of losing business in an already bad market.

“A bar and drinking and smoking go together,” said Larry Postaer, co-owner of the Broadway Bar and Grill on the Third Street Promenade. “You are killing the goose that laid the golden egg.’

The results of a new study released on Wednesday indicate that, despite fears to the contrary, banning smoking in restaurants does not put a damper on business.

Using sales tax figures from restaurants in 10 California and three Colorado cities, the study conducted by researchers from the University of California at San Francisco showed no loss of revenue and no shift of business to neighboring towns that have no smoking ban.

But the fears of restaurateurs were underscored by the experience of the owner of a West Hollywood eatery who said her place is a “ghost town” since a new law went into effect there recently.

“It’s a nightmare,” said Helen Petrov, owner of the Yukon Mining Company.

One of the reasons for that is that West Hollywood smokers can take their business, at least for now, to Beverly Hills or Santa Monica. Both cities are in the process of passing laws banning smoking in restaurants.

“This has to be a regional ban to work,” said West Hollywood Councilman Paul Koretz, who spearheaded the ban in his city. “It’s important we all go together for the health of the general public.”

The California Restaurant Assn. for years has advocated a statewide law governing smoking that would level the playing field and put restaurants out of the enforcement business. Spokesman Gerald Breitbart urged backing of a bill sponsored by Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Encino) that would ban smoking in all workplaces, including restaurants and bars.

Until then, however, cities around the state confronted with mounting evidence on the dangers of secondhand smoke, have moved toward stricter prohibitions or outright bans in public places, with bars being the last bastion of smokers’ resistance.

Though restaurant chains, such as Islands, have banned smoking in their bar area without a loss of business, there is widespread belief and fear that such a ban would be the death knell for many small businesses.

Speaking to that issue, Jay Fiordella, owner of Santa Monica’s popular eatery and watering hole, Chez Jay, urged the council to turn away from political correctness and to continue to allow smoking at his bar.

Otherwise, “You’ll put us out of business,” he said.

Two other speakers, however, told Fiordella they were former loyal customers driven away by his smoke-filled room. “We’d love to return to his restaurant,” said radiologist Richard Stenkel. “We don’t go to Jay’s much anymore.”