Camarillo Backs Sweeping Ban on Smoking : Government: Merchants say the action could drive them out of business. The ordinance will go before the council one more time.

Camarillo City Council members late Wednesday unanimously approved a sweeping ban on smoking in public places, despite the objections of merchants who said the move could drive them out of business.

“We’re only attempting to protect the rights of those who don’t smoke,” Councilman Mike Morgan said. “Businesses aren’t always affected if there’s no smoking. Studies have shown that people adjust to it.”

Although the ordinance is still subject to approval at a second reading next month, the unanimous decision left no doubt that Camarillo will become the fifth Ventura County city to adopt tougher smoking laws since July. Ventura County has passed a similar ordinance for unincorporated areas.

Supporters of the ordinance burst into applause after the tighter restrictions were approved.

“This is nasty business, second-hand smoke,” said Michael Burgos of Camarillo. “It’s a health issue. The public has a right to be protected.”

More than 75 supporters and opponents of the proposal crowded into the council chambers for a debate that lasted nearly four hours.

Some business owners told the council they could not survive the new law, which prohibits smoking in virtually every restaurant, shop and workplace in the city.

“This is my restaurant, my business,” said Dorothy Walden, who owns Dorothy’s Chuck Wagon on Ventura Boulevard. “I don’t understand why government has a right to do this. I’ve put 11 years of sweat and tears into that business, and if this goes through, I have a very bad feeling I’ll be on the welfare rolls.”

But supporters of the ordinance said studies have shown that businesses do not suffer from such laws.

“There is one business that is hurt by these ordinances: the tobacco business,” said Nan Waltman, an educator with the Ventura County Health Department. “Smoking bans work because they are popular.”

Dave Wallace of Thousand Oaks, a former smoker who works with tobacco users, said: “I have not found one person who said, ‘Let’s not go to that restaurant because we can’t smoke.’ ”

Councilwoman Charlotte Craven, one of two council members who served on a committee that recommended the ordinance, cited health concerns as the primary impetus behind it.

“The reason we’re looking at this is to keep the public and employees from being exposed to secondhand smoke,” she said.

But Harry Lundgren, a retired plumber from Ventura, said smokers have rights too.

“I have lung cancer, but I believe it’s my right to die of lung cancer,” he said.

Lundgren said he spoke against a similar ordinance recently approved by the Ventura City Council, and said officials there ignored a petition he presented with thousands of signatures.

“They didn’t even look at it,” he said. “This should be put to a vote of the people.”

Several supporters of the Camarillo ordinance cited Tuesday’s report in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., which for the first time linked toxins from secondhand smoke to the fetuses of pregnant women who never smoked.

Lundgren was unimpressed. “This is just something that’s come up to influence people,” he told the council.

The ordinance, which will take effect 30 days after its final adoption, restricts smoking in virtually every business accessible to the public except tobacco shops and some bars. Half of the rooms in hotels and motels will have to be reserved for nonsmokers. Cigarette vending machines will be allowed only within 25 feet of the front door of bars.

Cocktail lounges will be exempted, but bars and lounges connected to restaurants will be forced to build a separate ventilation system. Bar and restaurant owners will be given 10 months to make ventilation changes.

The proposal drew skepticism and resentment by those who lobby for tobacco rights professionally.

“It sounds like the standard California intolerance that is so popular these days,” said Tom Lauria, a spokesman for the Washington-based Tobacco Institute.

“They don’t give business owners or customers the right of self-determination,” Lauria said. “Camarillo is endorsing tobacco apartheid over fairness, and it’s based on the floppiest science available.”

A group of tobacco and restaurant lobbyists is working to put before California voters a proposition that would, among other things, guarantee that 25% of restaurant seating allow smoking, the state attorney general’s office said.