City May Order Review of Smoking Law : Oxnard: The council will weigh toughening its ordinance, in the wake of other municipalities that have approved stricter provisions.

Following five other Ventura County cities that have passed tough new laws, the Oxnard City Council is expected today to order a review of the city’s smoking ordinance.

“We’ve seen an increasing concern about the danger of secondhand smoke,” said Mayor Manuel Lopez, who said he will request the review. “I think it’s time we take another look at the city’s smoking ordinance.”

But business officials in the county’s largest city expressed concern that tougher regulations could harm restaurants and other small businesses.

“We’re going to have to survey our members and find out how they would feel about a tough ordinance like Ojai’s or Ventura’s,” said Don Facciano, executive director of the Oxnard Chamber of Commerce. Both of those cities prohibit smoking in restaurants, stores, workplaces and other public buildings, with the exception of bars.

Five cities in the county have approved tough new regulations since July, when Moorpark prohibited smoking in workplaces, restaurants and public buildings.

And last week, the Camarillo City Council approved an ordinance that would bar smoking in all public areas except bars and some motel and hotel rooms. The council must approve the ordinance at a second reading before it becomes law.

Thousand Oaks also has a strict anti-smoking policy.

Oxnard’s existing ordinance, approved in 1988, gives employers the right to decide whether to allow smoking in the workplace. It prohibits smoking in office restrooms, lounges and reception areas, but does not regulate smoking in restaurants, stores or other establishments.

The city has interpreted the law to ban smoking in public areas within the Esplanade and Centerpoint malls, City Atty. Gary Gillig said Monday.

But he added that the ordinance does not regulate the city’s restaurants, stores and private workplaces.

Mannie Vega, a community relations officer for Oxnard, said complaints from employees about smoky work environments have declined in recent years, as the city’s largest employers adopted anti-smoking policies on their own.

“In general, workplaces in Oxnard are becoming smoke-free,” Vega said.

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Anti-smoking advocates in Ventura County say the trend toward smoke-free workplaces is the inevitable result of medical research on the effects of secondhand smoke.

“This has become a public health issue,” said Fred Bysshe, an attorney who heads the Smoking Action Coalition, an advocacy group formed by the county’s medical and dental societies and the local chapters of the heart, lung and cancer societies.

Bysshe said the anti-smoking advocates are lobbying the city of Port Hueneme to adopt tougher smoking regulations at the same time Oxnard does. That way, he said, restaurants and other retail businesses in one city will not lose smoking customers to businesses in the neighboring city.

Coalition member Robert Towner, a dentist and president of the Port Hueneme Chamber of Commerce, said the chance that businesses will lose customers will lessen when all cities in the county have anti-smoking laws.

“The coalition feels if we could get all cities to adopt the same ordinance, everybody would be on equal ground,” Towner said.

But Walker Merryman, vice president of the Washington-based Tobacco Institute, said a broad ban on workplace smoking would be unfair.

“What makes sense for a voluntary health advocacy office may not make sense for a warehouse,” Merryman said.

On Monday, several Oxnard council members said they welcomed a second look at the city’s smoking ordinance, but added that it is important to balance the different interests involved.

“I think we need to view the ordinance in terms of the legitimate concern about secondhand smoke,” Councilman Tom Holden said.

“I think most people are entitled in their workplace to a smoke-free environment,” Councilman Andres Herrera said. “But we have to make sure that an ordinance offers businesses an opportunity for compliance without strangling them.”

Brendan Bense, manager of the Lobster Trap Restaurant at Channel Islands Harbor, expressed the conflicting views of businesses.

“On a business basis, I would say there’s a fear of losing business,” he said. “But on a personal basis, I think that what’s best for all is the best.”