Ventura Moves Forward With Ban on Smoking

Despite protests from restaurant owners, the Ventura City Council is moving forward with a sweeping ordinance that would outlaw smoking at all businesses and restaurants, except for bars.

To soften the impact on restaurateurs, the council Monday voted to waive permit fees and give restaurant owners with bars until February, 1995, to comply with the ban. The law would be implemented in three months for all other restaurants and businesses.

“Smoking is a health issue,” Mayor Tom Buford said in an interview. “It’s a legitimate area for governmental action.”

In hours of public testimony before the council Monday night, nonsmoking advocates cited the dangers of secondhand smoke while restaurant owners argued that they should have the right to designate their establishments smoking or nonsmoking.

The council voted 5 to 2 for preliminary approval of the ban, with Councilmen Jack Tingstrom and Jim Monahan dissenting. Both are ardent supporters of the business community and sided with restaurateurs. A final vote on the law will take place later this month.

Nonsmoking advocates, however, swayed the rest of the council with their arguments. Representatives from the American Cancer Society, the Ventura County Medical Society and the American Heart Assn. testified about the dangers of secondhand smoke to employees in restaurants and other places where smoking is now allowed.

Michael Millenheft, a 27-year-old tax auditor, stood in front of the council with his 6-month-old son in a stroller and urged the council to put public health above business interests.

“I would like to guarantee my son a smoke-free environment,” Millenheft said. “The restaurateurs say this is a freedom of choice issue. What they mean is that making money is more important than the health of our children.”

Restaurant owners, who submitted a petition signed by 4,396 residents against the ban, were disappointed by the council’s action.

Michael Wagner, who owns Andria’s Seafood restaurant, told the council that many of his patrons smoke and that the ban would drive away customers to eateries in Oxnard and Santa Barbara.

“If I thought the ordinance was necessary to my business, I’d change to nonsmoking in a heartbeat,” Wagner said.

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The ban will prohibit customers from smoking at all restaurants, except for outdoor seating areas. Restaurant owners who have bars at their establishments must declare their bars nonsmoking or wall off the bar and install a separate ventilation system.

The ban would also compel every hotel and restaurant to post prominent “No Smoking” signs. Smoking will be prohibited in all public places and all businesses, except for tobacco retail stores.

Councilman Gregory L. Carson offered a compromise that would make it easier for some restaurants to be classified as a bar and thus be exempt from the ban. But his proposal was rejected by a majority of the council, who said that by redefining some restaurants as bars, it would be unfair to restaurants in neighboring cities that have adopted similar smoking bans.

“I think it would be important to have a level playing field,” Councilman Steve Bennett said.

Bennett noted that Moorpark, Ojai, Thousand Oaks and Ventura County have all defined bars as establishments that serve alcohol and receive less than 25% of gross receipts from food sales. Under Carson’s compromise, bars in Ventura would receive less than 35% of gross receipts from food sales.

Bennett said by tinkering with the percentage, Ventura could “really open a can of worms.”

The council, however, gave restaurants a break by waiving permit fees for constructing walls and air-conditioning systems in restaurants that want to allow smoking in their bars.

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The council also decided to exempt restaurants from laws requiring that the construction be upgraded to all city standards. Property owners are usually compelled to upgrade other parts of their buildings to meet stricter seismic safety codes and other new standards.

All violations will be considered infractions, punishable only by fines ranging from $100 to $500.