CALABASAS : Council Orders Anti-Smoking Law

Calabasas this week became the latest Southern California city to join a growing movement to snuff out smoking in restaurants.

By a unanimous vote, the Calabasas City Council at its regular Wednesday night meeting asked the city staff to prepare an ordinance banning smoking inside restaurants, except for barroom sections. The 3-year-old city currently has no anti-smoking ordinance.

The move comes on the heels of similar decisions by the city councils of Pasadena, Long Beach and Los Angeles, which approved a ground-breaking restaurant smoking ban in June. But the law in Los Angeles was put on hold by an initiative drive supported by the tobacco industry and many restaurateurs to allow voters to decide the issue in November.

“I was ready to pull the issue from discussion because of what happened in Los Angeles,” said Calabasas Mayor Marvin Lopata, who introduced the smoking ban proposal. “But there was a lot of support for this on the council and from people who have called me. I haven’t received one negative (phone call) on it.”

Lopata and Agoura Hills Mayor Ed Kurtz earlier this month proposed that the two adjacent cities move together on a restaurant smoking ban to discourage patrons who smoke from taking their business across city lines. The Agoura Hills City Council plans to begin considering a smoking ban Wednesday, City Manager Terry Matz said. Agoura Hills now requires that the seating in any restaurant with a capacity for 50 customers or more to be at least half non-smoking.

The Calabasas ordinance is expected to be drafted by mid-August, and both city councils plan to approve an anti-smoking measure by early October, Lopata said. The approval process should be relatively easy in the two cities, which have strong environmental records, Lopata said.