Santa Clarita Smoking Ban Effective Monday : Law: The ordinance will affect most people who work indoors, though restaurants, bars and small businesses get some leeway.

Workers taking cigarette breaks here will have to go outside beginning Monday when the city’s new smoking law goes into effect.

The hotly debated tobacco control ordinance, approved by the Santa Clarita City Council in June, bans smoking at most indoor job sites. It also prohibits cigarette vending machines in the workplace.

But restaurants, bars and small businesses were given some leeway under the new law. Restaurants and bars may establish their own smoking policies as long as they are posted for customers. Any small business that is operated away from the public and that doesn’t share its ventilation system with another office may set its own policy as well.

Copies of the ordinance, with an explanatory letter from Mayor George Pederson, have been mailed to Santa Clarita’s two chambers of commerce and the business association that represents the Valencia Industrial Center.

“It is important that each business understand completely the requirements included within the ordinance before it becomes effective,” Pederson said. “We don’t want there to be any misunderstanding.”

Although the ordinance has been debated in Santa Clarita for several months, city officials don’t expect an uproar when it goes into effect.

“We went through a lot of public participation to come up with a plan the people in the city want,” said Ken Pulskamp, assistant city manager.

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The regulation is less restrictive than one the City Council nearly put in place seven months ago. Council members had approved a ban in December that applied to restaurants as well, with few people having come forward either to support or oppose the ban.

The issue was reopened when nearly 200 people packed the council chambers in January--some calling smoking a health issue and supporting the ban and others saying businesses’ rights were being infringed upon and opposing it.

Six months of subsequent public meetings uncovered support for smoking controls by many residents, but also complaints from restaurant owners that customers might go to eating establishments in the unincorporated county area where they can smoke.

But the law governing restaurants and bars may change Jan. 1 because of state legislation.

Earlier this month, Gov. Pete Wilson signed a statewide smoking prohibition that affects virtually all enclosed workplaces, including restaurants.

All cities and counties will be affected by the state ban, removing the complaint that patrons might avoid one restaurant to eat in another that allows smoking.

Santa Clarita’s ordinance will be replaced when the state ban takes effect Jan. 1, unless California voters approve a softer ordinance put on the November ballot by cigarette maker Philip Morris Inc. The measure, Proposition 188, would allow all businesses to set their own smoking policies.