Anti-Smoking Proposals

* I started smoking as a teen-ager and gave it up with great difficulty after too many offensive and expensive years. I applaud the strong action sought by the Clinton Administration (“White House Seeks Wide Smoking Ban,” March 26). Tobacco should neither be offered nor condoned by a civilized society. I wonder how long it will take to get similar, progressive action on alcohol. I am also an ex-drinker. I know how alcohol can destroy families and communities in a far more tragic and criminal way.

M. POWER GIACOLETTI

Lake Forest

* Prohibition didn’t work, but it created a huge black market with much crime and corruption. The (so-called) “War on Drugs” is a huge failure, with a worldwide black market, crime, corruption in government and flouting of the Constitution (forfeiture laws, guilty until proven innocent). We could have paid off the national debt with what we have spent and will go on spending. Now we will have a war on tobacco, ditto, ditto, ditto!

Washington never learns the obvious--you cannot legislate addiction away, you must treat it.

SHIRLEY OSBORN

Claremont

* I regret very much that your editorial writers did not take the time to communicate with me before editorializing (March 27) against my efforts to protect the jobs of thousands of restaurant workers without sacrificing their health and that of the public. Had The Times given me the courtesy of a phone call, or bothered to read my amendments to AB 13, the smoking ban bill, you would have written a very different editorial.

I am a nonsmoker. In the 19 years I have served in the Legislature, I have never voted against the health interests of Californians. The memory of watching my great-aunt kill herself by smoking will forever be etched in my mind. I have always believed that smoking is bad for one’s health.

My voting record on tough anti-smoking legislation is solid. My vote to end the “Joe Camel” campaign was an effort to stop the insidious tobacco campaign aimed at our young people. I do not accept or solicit campaign contributions from the tobacco industry. That is why your editorial characterizing me in bed with the tobacco industry was so painful and unfair.

California remains in the grips of a serious recession. The amendment I offered to AB 13 was a direct response to concerns raised by the hotel and restaurant workers at the hearing that further restrictions on restaurants would cost even more jobs. To label me with the tobacco lobby for speaking out for workers in this hard-hit industry, is not accurate. I stated clearly that I supported AB 13 with or without the amendment.

My amendment said that if technology is available and complies with the AB 13 standard, a restaurant could choose to set aside up to 25% of its space for smokers if and only if the level is insignificantly harmful to the exposed persons, including employees, and smoke gases and particulate matter from that area do not recalculate or drift to other areas of the restaurant (this is the standard of AB 13). The amendment did not, as you assert, delay the effective date of the smoking ban, Jan. 1, 1995. Curiously, the standards offered in my amendment for restaurants are identical to standards that the author of AB 13 carved out for the powerful hotel industry.

I told the representative of the American Heart Assn. after their lawyers had reviewed the amendment, that if they still felt that it would damage the impact of the bill, I would remove the amendment.

If your readers would like a copy of the amendment, they may request one from my Los Angeles office at (213) 620-2529, or from my Sacramento office at (916) 445-3456.

SEN. ART TORRES

D-Los Angeles