We Are Not Criminals

L.A. compromise is a victory

Any adoption or expansion of a smoking ban can hardly be thought of as a win for those who cherish smoker’s rights and especially cigar rights. But the Wednesday vote of the Los Angeles City Council’s Arts, Parks, Health and Aging Committee (reported on in depth yesterday) represents a new opportunity for smokers to make a legitimate case for places of their own to enjoy a legal product.

It’s true that the approved instructions for a new ordinance still have to be turned into actual language by the City Attorney and the process could be derailed. But if the agreed-to compromise between Councilman Grieg Smith, the anti-smoking regulars and the opposition led by cigar smokers and the cigar trade with the help of Cigar Rights of America has several positive points in its favor for the future, in Los Angeles and elsewhere.

The usual tactic of the anti-smoking forces is to take whatever compromise is available if their moves are opposed and then come back in six months or a year and ask for more restrictions. One participant in the negotiations noted, however, that Smith’s staff asked the anti-smoking groups if that was their tactic and when assured that it was not, indicated that Smith would strongly oppose any future expansions of his proposal from the compromise voted on this week. Although such an expansion could be introduced by another Council member, Smith has the lead on this issue because he introduced the current proposal.

Although the new law, if passed, will create more restrictions on smokers, there aren’t many places to which it will apply. Estimates from the California Restaurant Association already indicated that more than 90% – perhaps 96-97% or more – of all Los Angeles-area restaurants with outdoor dining areas do not allow smoking on their patios because the overwhelming majority of customers do not want it. Those who argued against the ban and fought for a compromise were hard-pressed to name more than a handful (literally) of places which allow cigar smoking, even if they allow cigarette smoking!

Most importantly, the compromise language creates – possibly for the first time – a clear conceptual delineation between where smoking is to be allowed and not. The agreement voted through on Wednesday says essentially that as a matter of public policy in a largely non-smoking metropolis, smoking is to be allowed in public gathering places where minors are not allowed. Although the anti-smoking forces bellowed about the health impacts of outdoor smoking, Smith specifically brought up the issue of exposure to children in his comments and it was on that basis that the compromise was reached.

Based on this important concept, which was the foundation of Wednesday’s agreement, one can envision a cottage industry of restaurants, bars and other facilities in which smoking will be allowed if entry is age-restricted. Indoor smoking is not permitted in California because of the alleged “need to protect” workers from secondhand smoke exposure, but even this may change over time for age-restricted facilities.

From the cigar smoker’s standpoint, this kind of restriction makes some sense because most cigar smoking does not take place in the presence of minors, except at home. And now the nation’s second-largest city has taken a position which does not simply humiliate smokers further, but balances the 86% majority of non-smokers against the appropriate and recognized rights of adult smokers to enjoy a legal product.

This is a significant and exportable line of thought and fully supports the rights of smokers to enjoy themselves in adults-only facilities such as cigar shops and tobacco bars.

A collateral benefit to the vigorous opposition to the proposed outdoor dining area ban on smoking is the likelihood that the proposal to ban smoking essentially everywhere in Los Angeles introduced by Councilman Bernard Parks last August is more or less frozen, on its way to being dropped at some point in the future.

Parks proposed that smoking be prohibited anywhere people gather, which would include on the city’s streets, in common areas of apartment buildings and so on. It raised the specter of a police state in which the Los Angeles Police Department would have to spend an enormous amount of time issuing tickets . . . or ignore the law.

Although Parks’ proposal will not be dismissed and will linger on the books for some time, it would have to come before the same committee once again to be considered. And for now and some time into the future, Councilman Tom LaBonge and his Arts, Parks, Health and Aging Committee don’t have much interest in debating smoking again.

L.A. smoking compromise advances

A lengthy and intense debate over an outdoor smoking ban in Los Angeles was essentially resolved on Wednesday afternoon at a meeting of the City’s Arts, Parks, Health and Aging Committee.

After nearly five months of wrangling between anti-smoking supporters and cigar rights promoters, with substantial help from the Cigar Rights of America grass-roots advocacy group, the three-member committee voted unanimously to adopt a compromise motion on a modest extension of the City’s existing anti-smoking policy:

Smoking will be banned in outdoor dining areas, with the following exemptions:

(1) The new smoking policy exempts existing outdoor areas of establishments/businesses that operate as bars, nightclubs or lounges.

(2) The new policy exempts cigar shops that operate under current City planning and zoning regulations.

(3) The new policy exempts restaurants with an outdoor dining area that allows smoking when the establishment moves to a “club,” “lounge,” “bar” or “nightclub” experience and only when entry is age restricted (exemption occurs when the alcohol age restriction or “carding” begins).

To clarify, the ENTIRE establishment, not just the bar area or outdoor dining area, will be age restricted.

(4) All private events (events that are ticketed such as fundraising events, private parties) are exempt from the new policy.

(5) There will be a six-month education and warning period after final Council vote.

From this point, the City Attorney’s Office must now draft the actual language of an ordinance, which will then go to the full City Council for approval, which is essentially assured.

The back story on this compromise language demonstrated the power of showing up to protest, no matter how long the odds. There’s little doubt that when Councilman Grieg Smith made a motion to ban smoking in outdoor dining areas last July, it was expected to roll through without even a hiccup in committee. But a single protester against the ban in the first committee hearing led to a meeting of interested parties and then the process slowed down as both sides began meeting with individual Council members and their policy deputies.

The hero in this story, from the standpoint of trying to create good public policy, has to be Arts, Parks, Health & Aging Committee chair Tom LaBonge (4th District). He was the one who insisted on having additional meetings on the potential economic impact of such a ban and made sure that both sides were not simply heard, but had meaningful opportunities to make their case not simply in public hearings, but in private meetings where the real discussion is held.

In the end, Smith’s staff hammered out the final agreement, meeting with each advocacy group to obtain a consensus that both sides could live with this language. There is a significant opportunity for cigar advocates in other communities to build on this development in Los Angeles in the future; we’ll have a fuller analysis of the policy impact of Wednesday’s vote tomorrow.