Restaurants Weigh Ban on Smoking

Beverly Hills took a cautious step this week toward what many believe will be inevitable: a ban on smoking in restaurants.

“There is no question that our ordinance will be changed, and if you think it will stay the same, you’re deceiving yourself,” Beverly Hills Councilman Allan L. Alexander told several dozen restaurateurs, hotel operators and business people who turned out Tuesday to informally discuss a ban.

Beverly Hills enacted such a ban in 1987, but it was snuffed out after four months under pressure from restaurant owners who said they were losing patrons to neighboring cities that did not have smoking restrictions.

But last year the cities that surround Beverly Hills--Los Angeles and West Hollywood--adopted anti-smoking ordinances. Nearby Santa Monica also recently prohibited smoking in restaurants.

Beverly Hills has been taking a wait-and-see attitude, watching the legal challenges to Los Angeles’ ban and legislative limits being discussed in Sacramento.

“We get calls in favor of a smoking ban every day, asking when we’re going to adopt an ordinance. Politically, it’s time to place it on the (City Council’s) agenda and adopt it as legislation,” said Beverly Hills City Manager Mark Scott.

The council will be discussing how to draft anti-smoking regulations in May, after which more informal workshops will be held for local businesses to participate in developing the ordinance, Scott said. All five council members have expressed support for a ban, and many restaurateurs seemed resigned to it.

Nate-n-Al’s owner Sandy Mendelson said he is convinced that business would pick up if the restaurant was smoke-free. He has thought of banning smoking on his own but would prefer the city bear the scorn of his employees, many of whom are heavy smokers.

“We have empty tables in the smoking section. (Customers) don’t want to sit near the smoking section, and our turnover is suffering. We’re losing business to neighboring cities,” Mendelson said.

But some restaurateurs said they would fight a ban.

The operators of Beverly Hills’ large hotels said they would oppose any ban that would include restaurants within the hotels. City law now requires eateries to set aside 60% of their seating for nonsmokers, but hotel restaurants are exempted.

The general manager of Beverly Hills Hotel, Kerman Beriker, said he is concerned about international tourists, who often are heavy smokers and who comprise about 30% of the hotel’s patrons. Officials from other hotels agreed, saying they worry that tourism from overseas will decline if visitors can’t smoke.

“Let it be a business decision; let it be our decision. I should have the right to decide how to run my business,” said John Indrieri, general manager of the Regent Beverly Wilshire.

Mark Fleischman, owner of Tatou, which is not a hotel restaurant, said: “We’ve experienced every sort of pestilence over the past couple years in Southern California. We need to keep tourists coming to this city.”

Beverly Hills’ 123 restaurants posted $135 million in sales in 1993.

The California Restaurant Assn. has urged the passage of statewide smoking regulations in order to even the playing field for all restaurants. The association supports a bill backed by Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Brentwood) that would ban smoking in all workplaces, including restaurants and bars.

The bill was amended by a Senate committee last month, prohibiting cities from adopting stricter anti-smoking legislation, and could allow smoking in up to 25% of the space in restaurants. Friedman has said he will drop the bill unless the amendments are removed.