FOG CLEARING: Breathers 5, Smokers 1. That’s...

FOG CLEARING: Breathers 5, Smokers 1. That’s the score now that Ventura has become the county’s fifth local government to ban public smoking (B1), joining Ventura County, Moorpark, Thousand Oaks and Ojai. Only Simi Valley has refused. . . . Next target: undecided. But the Smoking Action Coalition--representing the local lung, cancer, heart, medical and dental associations--says it will eventually hit every city in the county. . . . Ventura County already has California’s lowest smoking rate: 18% of adults. State average: 21.6%.

WRIGHT RUNS: It’s official: State Sen. Cathie Wright will indeed run for lieutenant governor (B1). . . . The Simi Valley Republican’s entry means that Ventura County will have at least two candidates for statewide office next year. Former GOP Assemblyman Tom McClintock wants to be controller. . . . Local politicians traditionally have a tough time running statewide because few people know them in Los Angeles or the Bay Area. One of Wright’s possible opponents--Assemblyman Stan Statham--may be in the same fix: He’s from Shasta County (population 156,000).

TRIBUTE: Lynn Griffey never met Jim O’Brien, the Oxnard police detective slain Dec. 2. But her father is a deputy in Minnesota. . . . “I think that’s why this affected me so hard,” said Griffey, who decided to do a portrait of O’Brien as she watched his funeral on TV. . . . On Tuesday, she presented it to Police Chief Harold Hurtt, who promised to hang it at the station. “I just felt a great deal of pain,” Griffey said. “I felt I needed to do this.”

CLUBS FOLD: As the deadline nears, shoppers are turning to a time-honored holiday tradition: charge cards (B1). . . . But another holiday custom--Christmas Club accounts--has all but disappeared. “I don’t know anybody that offers them,” said Debbie Davidson at Bank of A. Levy, which stopped marketing the accounts five years ago. Account holders put in a set amount every week or month, then got a check in December. . . . “There was no demand,” Davidson said. “People don’t plan ahead that much.”