Smoke Screen Is Blown

Re “Something to Chew On” (by S. Irene Virbila, Dec. 18):

The same restaurant owners who are claiming such high patronage of their eateries are the very same owners who cried that they would go out of business if the no-smoking ordinance passed.

Do I smell crow baking in those busy industrial ovens?

SANDY ROBBINS

Marina del Rey

It is good to know that most restaurateurs are pleased with their business; after all, pleasing them is the customers’--and certainly the restaurant critics’--raison d’e^tre. But I am particularly impressed by Spago’s Wolfgang Puck, who whines: “If I tell somebody who lives in Los Angeles they can only get a table at 9:30, they just say, ‘Screw you, we’re going somewhere else. We’ll eat at 7:30 or 8, when we want to.’ ”

Can you imagine the nerve of people who actually want to spend their $200 to eat when they want to rather than when the restaurateurs want them to!?

RON DiCOSTANZO

Santa Monica