COUNTYWIDE : Reconsideration of Smoking Ban Urged

A coalition of restaurant and business owners were mounting an offensive Monday to overturn Orange County’s newly approved anti-smoking ordinance.

Surprisingly silent before last week’s vote by the Board of Supervisors, lobbyists--by fax, telephone and in person--were calling on supervisors to reconsider last week’s unanimous vote that will outlaw smoking in virtually all businesses, eateries and retail stores in unincorporated Orange County by January, 1995.

The new ordinance comes back before the board today for a required confirmation vote.

Appeals from restaurants, hotels and other opponents were flooding county offices Monday warning of grim economic prospects should such a ban get final approval.

Ironically, since the county’s smoking ban covers only unincorporated areas of the county, all of the businesses sending protest letters would not be covered under the new law.

Nevertheless, the faxes and letters kept coming from such places as Anaheim, Irvine and the city of Bellflower in Los Angeles County.

“This (smoking ban) will destroy the tourism business that comes to Anaheim,” stated the Ramada’s letter to Board of Supervisors’ offices. “Conventioneers and tourists will choose to take their business elsewhere. That means a severe loss of revenue for Orange County.”

In a letter to Board of Supervisors Chairman Harriett M. Wieder, Rod T. Schinnerer, general manager of the Irvine’s Hyatt Regency, argued that such a smoking ban--though only in unincorporated Orange County--would place restaurants at an “economic disadvantage” to those in cities that do not have smoking bans.

“We encourage you to vote no on the smoking ban and let the free enterprise system work,” Schinnerer said in the letter. “When it comes to economic sense for restaurants to be smoke-free, they will do so on their own.”

The appeals have come as a surprise to most county officials since last week’s vote passed without a word of opposition from local business groups during the board’s weekly meeting.

As approved last week, the smoking ban would be phased in during the next year in such communities as Sunset Beach, North Tustin and El Modena. Except in private officers where all employees are smokers, the ordinance will ultimately eliminate smoking in about 195 restaurants, offices and shops by 1995.

Violators of the new ordinance will face fines of up to $100 per infraction. And existing smoking policies enforced by 22 city governments will not be affected by the new county law.