City to Consider Smoking Ban for Public Areas : Santa Clarita: The broad plan is back. It targets restaurants, workplaces and indoor commercial businesses.

Wayne Taylor is slightly hunched over, his hands cupped in front of his face to shield against a phantom breeze.

There’s a metallic scrape and a momentary hiss. Taylor drops his hands, sighs, and wisps of smoke stream out his nose and mouth as he talks.

“I wonder sometimes how much longer I’m going to be able to do this here,” said Taylor, 32, gesturing to the Newhall restaurant patio where he is having lunch. “They can really make you feel like you’re a criminal.”

The act of lighting a cigarette has become more difficult in Santa Clarita recently and may become harder still in weeks to come.

City officials are considering a tobacco control ordinance that would prohibit smoking in restaurants, workplaces and enclosed public areas. Banks, malls, theaters, Laundromats--virtually all indoor commercial businesses--would be covered. The City Council is expected to discuss the proposal this month.

“I think some of the thinking is, if there are less people smoking maybe it will be easier for others to quit,” said Councilman Carl Boyer, who agrees with the theory from his own attempts to stop.

Boyer quit smoking when discussions about the city ban were first under way, but started again on Jan. 17 in the aftermath of the Northridge earthquake.

The Santa Clarita City Council actually approved the broad ban in December, but changed direction one month later when about 200 people packed City Hall.

Supporters cited health damage from secondhand smoke; restaurant owners said customers would go to nearby unincorporated areas where no ban exists, and other critics said the issue was one of personal freedom rather than health.

“I just wish we went after guns and drug dealers with the same intensity,” said Councilwoman Jan Heidt, who prefers letting businesses and smokers police themselves. “I think that most of us who smoke here try to be considerate of others.”

Some Santa Clarita smokers say they already feel penned in. They often face no-smoking house rules set down by spouses or other relatives, and don’t appreciate having to look harder for havens where they can light up.

“I don’t mind not smoking at work, but when I start having to worry about it on my (free) time, then I get concerned,” said Taylor, a Canyon Country resident.

“If you want to come up to me and ask me to put my cigarette out, that’s one thing, but all these ‘No Smoking’ signs are a pain,” said Michelle Rauth, a Saugus resident. “What if someone wants you to be able to smoke in their restaurant? What if someone wants you to be able to smoke in their office?”

Rauth said that she doesn’t go to different businesses depending on their smoking policies, but that more establishments seem to be considering bans since the City Council has discussed the issue.

Campus stadiums here are the latest to be declared off-limits for smokers.

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The College of the Canyons last week expanded an indoor smoking ban to include its stadium, uncovered stairwells and a 20-foot radius around campus doorways. A similar decision was made for Santa Clarita’s public high school and junior high schools eight months ago, making baseball and football games smoke-free.

“We are a decreasing minority being pushed into a corner by a majority,” said John Hassel, a smoker for nearly 40 years.

Hassel, a trustee for the William S. Hart Union High School District, voted for the ban on smoking at Santa Clarita’s high school and junior high school campuses to set a good health example for students.

Although he agrees with the ban, Hassel admits it is difficult to sit through a four- or five-hour meeting without a cigarette.

“It’s hell. It’s pure hell,” Hassel said. Santa Clarita “is not a comfortable place for a smoker to be.”