Restaurant Owners, Smokers Fired Up as Ban Takes Effect : Ventura: Ordinance barring puffing in most workplaces, restaurants and other public places is instituted today.

Clutching a pack of Marlboros, surveying a table lined with friends blithely puffing away on slim sticks of tobacco, Arlene Stone-Machamer vented her disgust with Ventura’s new smoking law.

“I’m damned if I’m going to come into a bar or a restaurant and be told I can’t have a cigarette because the city has passed an ordinance,” said Stone-Machamer, 40, lunching Monday at The King and I restaurant in mid-town Ventura.

Much to the chagrin of die-hard smokers and the establishments they frequent, Ventura institutes one of the county’s strictest smoking bans today, one that prohibits lighting up in most workplaces, restaurants and other public places.

The only places still open to smokers--other than the great outdoors--are bars, outside seating areas in restaurants, designated hotel and motel rooms, tobacco stores and private homes.

Even the bars cannot allow smoking if more than 25% of their revenue comes from food sales. If a bar adjoins a restaurant, it must be completely separated from the food area and have a separate ventilation system.

That provision has prompted The King and I to cut down on its food business so that it can be officially considered a bar, where smoking is allowed.

City officials sent out 45,000 brochures this month, explaining to every postal customer in Ventura the ins and outs of the new smoking law. The move was prompted by dozens of calls to City Hall each day, asking questions or registering opinions on the ban.

“We had a lot of calls from people wanting to know what the restrictions were,” said Carol Green, assistant to the city manager.

Officials in the city’s code enforcement office said that since they haven’t fielded too many complaint calls, they assume that most residents support the new law. However, Kristin Reneau, a code enforcement secretary, said she sometimes receives calls concerning the “No Smoking” signs that businesses are supposed to post.

“Some people are worried about it and want to know if the sign can say that the city’s making them do it, so it doesn’t look like it’s their idea,” she said. Reneau said she tells business people they are free to design their own version of the sign.

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The City Council passed the ordinance in January after anti-smoking advocates squared off against worried restaurateurs in hours of emotional testimony.

Michael Wagner, owner of Andria’s Seafood restaurant and himself a smoker, told the council that the ban would drive away good customers.

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

On Monday, however, the manager at Andria’s Seafood, nonsmoker Randy Gravelin, said he’s looking forward to the change. “I’ve inhaled smoke for 25 years in this business,” he said.

Smoking outside on the patio is fine, he said, adding that smokers should have some rights. But he noted that patrons puffing away in a corner of the restaurant’s indoor smoking section can’t help but blow fumes into the nonsmoking section a few tables away. “It’s very unfair in here,” he said. “They shouldn’t smoke.”

Customer Charlene Levesque heartily agreed. “I like a cigarette after dinner, but I don’t have to have it in a restaurant,” said Levesque, 58, of Santa Paula. “Actually, if there’s a lot of smoke while I’m eating, I don’t like that.”

Her friend, Toby Brown, 55, visiting from Huntington Beach, said she thinks that the smell of tobacco smoke ruins a good meal. “Your nose is running, your food tastes like cigarettes and you leave smelling terrible,” she said.

About 60% of Ventura County diners request nonsmoking seating, according to a 1992 restaurant study by the Ventura County Public Health Department. Only 8% ask to be seated in the smoking section.

And the study found that restaurants that voluntarily banned smoking usually did as well or better afterward than when they allowed smoking. Of 48 restaurants that had voluntarily gone smoke-free, 58% saw no change in their business, while 38% reported sales had improved somewhat or greatly, the study found. Only 4% reported a decrease, according to the survey.

However, opponents of Ventura’s new ordinance--similar to ones already in place in Moorpark, Thousand Oaks, Ojai and unincorporated Ventura County--say the ban limits the personal freedom of business owners.

“It’s our money, it’s our investment, and we should decide what’s good for our business,” said Edda Rome, owner of The King and I, where on Monday afternoon friends gathered amid the red leather booths to eat lunch, celebrate a birthday and enjoy a few cigarettes.

“This is one of the oldest restaurants in Ventura, and all my customers smoke,” Rome said. “If I tell these customers they can’t smoke any more, I will go out of business.”

Instead, Rome has decided to serve dinner only four nights a week, or fewer if necessary, to meet the city’s definition of a bar--a business that earns 25% or less of its revenue from food sales.

Many of her customers think that the whole situation is an outrage.

“The liberal agenda is to take away all the guns and all the smoking,” said Michael LeBeck, 54, himself a nonsmoker. “There is no truth about this secondhand smoking stuff. The EPA forged all the tests in order to forward the liberal agenda.”

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As thin ribbons of cigarette smoke streamed around her, Stone-Machamer threw her own opinions into the fray.

“I think the decision should be left up to the owner of the establishment,” she said, questioning why city officials believe that they can legislate away individual rights.

“I think we’re definitely discriminated against,” she added. “In fact, I’m thinking about moving, and this is part of the reason. When are they going to tell me I can’t smoke in my own home?”