For Smokers, Restrictions Build Bonds and Business

An old cliche about dubious deals says they go down in smoke-filled back rooms.

Now all kinds of communication goes on in smoke-filled back rooms, partly because they are the only place smokers feel they can go and put a torch to it. The few-and-far-between smoking areas of the ‘90s are home to, as one tobacco-industry pundit puts it, “an esprit de corps on the sidewalks.” Smoking areas, often dim, dingy and tight, are, you might almost say, among the last places where communication and confidences are shared in the big city.

Of course, sometimes that can get you into trouble.

That much was clear last week when O.J. Simpson prosecution witness Philip L. Vannatter was grilled on the stand. Vannatter, a Los Angeles police detective, testified that Simpson was not at first a suspect in the killings of his ex-wife and her friend last year. But witnesses, including an ex-Mafioso-turned-informant, say Vannatter let on during a break in the courthouse smoking area that indeed Simpson was a suspect from early on. Vannatter denied saying that. Did the detective let down his guard in the comfort of the schmooze-heavy smoker scene?

“You force smokers into a closet and they start talking to one another,” says Tom Lauria of the Tobacco Institute, an industry trade group in Washington. “They share a common burden and the yoke of prejudice. Felons talk to police detectives. It’s amazing.”

Lauria says he knows of a real estate firm started by two Southern California business executives who used to meet during their smoking breaks working for a different company.

The now infamous smoking area on the Los Angeles County Criminal Courts Building’s 18th floor is actually the fire escape, a bathroom-size area with rusted bars. The sounds of jackhammers jacking and bus brakes squealing fill the air. There are two chairs.

Each courtroom floor in the building, in fact, has two fire escapes like these, at opposite ends of the building. In most you’ll find a steel folding chair, a cup or a wastebasket serving as an ashtray, and butts on the floor. And in front of each, you’ll probably find a red circle crossing out a black cigarette. Smoking is banned in California workplaces--including restaurants, but excluding bar areas. Unless, of course, the area is out in the open, or well-ventilated. Like a patio.

District attorney’s spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons says the fire escapes fall into the latter category. She should know, since the one in question on the 18th floor is accessible only through the district attorney’s office--a smoking area known to be frequented by stogie-toking attorneys who call themselves “the people.”

Still, there is apprehension in the courts building.

“Are you smoking?” a reporter asks a man lurking on the fire escape.

“Uh,” answers the man, 47-year-old Bill Davis, “are you going to get me in trouble?

“Where I work,” says the big, lumbering guy in basketball shoes, “if you’re caught smoking, you get fined $250.

“They’re turning smokers into criminals,” Davis explains (adding that he’s in court to attend a hearing regarding his probation--something about “dope”). “We’re starting to band together. We call each other ‘fellow smokers.’ ”

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Smokers’ numbers are dwindling--1 million people quit smoking each year. So are the places they can smoke--in some cities, even outdoor smoking is prohibited if it’s too close to buildings. So those left have a special bond.

“If you come up and start smoking, I say, ‘Hi,’ ” says 18-year-old Connie Nguyen, puffing while waiting to be called as a witness in a case.

Says friend Khanh Ngo, also 18: “Smokers have to stick together. . . . Want a hit?”

For many, smoke time is a social event. “I know most everyone I see out here,” says a 43-year-old state Department of Insurance worker, puffing outside the Ronald Reagan State Building in downtown L.A.

But before you feel sorry for these cooped-up coughers, Kevin Goebel, a lobbyist for Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, has a message: “It’s important to remember that these people are not being put there. They’re not required to go there.

“We’re not trying to punish smokers,” Goebel says, “we just need to protect nonsmokers.”

Ah, yes, to protect and to serve, like the boys in blue caught red-handed in the fire zone.

“Some people run from you like you’ve got the plague or something,” complains smoking Los Angeles Police Officer Tom Gracey. “Smoking is not politically correct.”

Yeah, yeah, tell it to the judge.