HUNTINGTON PARK : City Leaders Divided Over Smoking Ban

City leaders are divided on the merits of a smoking ban proposed for a majority of Huntington Park’s 50 restaurants.

The City Council created a task force last winter to study how an ordinance outlawing smoking in city restaurants would affect local merchants. The plan would ban smoking in establishments that do 51% or more of their business in food sales. Businesses that sell food but whose primary business is sales of another product--for example, bars that sell more liquor than food--would be exempt.

Councilman Tom Jackson said he is concerned that the proposed ordinance, scheduled to be considered by the council this month, would prompt smokers to go to venues outside the city where they could light up after meals.

“I have to study this proposal to determine what we would accomplish here--we don’t want to undermine our merchants,” Jackson said.

Huntington Park’s proposed anti-smoking ordinance will allow the city’s 10 largest restaurants to have small smoking sections to keep patrons from traveling to surrounding areas, said Mayor Ric Loya. The task force compromised to accommodate large eateries that have sophisticated ventilation systems in separate smoking sections, Loya said.

None of Huntington Park’s neighbors, including Maywood, Bell, Cudahy, Vernon and South Gate, have banned smoking in restaurants.

A bill that would abolish smoking in almost all indoor workplaces throughout the state has been approved by the state Senate Judiciary Committee. However, its author, Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Brentwood), has threatened to withdraw the bill unless amendments are removed that would prohibit cities from adopting stricter anti-smoking ordinances and allow smoking in up to 25% of the space in restaurants.

A task force survey of 95 restaurant owners in Huntington Park, Bell and Bell Gardens showed that 55% of them would support a law banning smoking in restaurants. However, 30% of the owners were concerned that a ban would cause them to lose business. The survey was done in conjunction with the American Lung Assn. and the California Department of Health.

Loya said warnings from the Environmental Protection Agency that second-hand smoke can be deadly prompted the council to form the task force.