No smoking signs about to go up in Pasadena
Ryan Carter, one of our business reporters, wrote today about the 'no smoking' signs that are being handed out to restaurants:
No Smoking.
That's the message thousands of Pasadena businesses will receive in the mail in the coming days.
And that message was conveyed Thursday as Statice Wilmore of the city's Tobacco Control Program spoke at a workshop held at the El Portal restaurant to inform curious business owners of the city's new smoking ban.
The ban, which the City Council passed in November, bars smokers from lighting up in outdoor restaurant patios, at bus stops, in ATM lines and within 20 feet of the entrance to any commercial building.
And business owners can be liable for the infraction if they fail to make the law clear to patrons.
"If we come out and you have ashtrays everywhere, and no signs up, than you are at risk of getting a citation," Wilmore told an audience of about 15 at the restaurant.
That is a new wrinkle: I don't recall the city telling business owners during the debate of the ordinance that they would be liable to get infractions.... then again, it sounds like the situation that Wilmore is talking about is one where a restaurant is blatantly ignoring outdoor patrons smoking on a regular basis.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the county, Long Beach is pushing a very different smoking law:
LONG BEACH -- Why is cigar smoke more acceptable than cigarette or hookah smoke, operators of local tobacco shops and hookah lounges asked Wednesday, a day after the City Council voted to allow cigar lounges in Long Beach.
"It's very unfair to allow just cigar shops to have smoking lounges," said Rudy Valle-Long, owner of Hot Box Smoke Shop at 5463 Atlantic Ave.
While Valle-Long doesn't operate a hookah lounge, he does sell hookahs and other tobacco accessories and had been considering opening a lounge, he said.
"Maybe I want to expand and put in a hookah lounge of my own," Valle-Long said. "We've been discussing it ever since the whole big hookah craze has been coming out."
The council voted 6-2 late Tuesday night, with Councilwomen Suja Lowenthal and Gerrie Schipske dissenting, to amend a city ordinance that bans smoking in public places and allow cigar lounges.
Councilwoman Tonia Reyes Uranga had proposed the change, and it was readily received by most council members.
"If a group of people want to go into their own private area and smoke, I have no problem with that," Councilman Val Lerch said.
As I recall, a similar exception was asked for by a couple of restaurants/cigar lounges but rejected in Pasadena.
The other day, by coincidence, I saw a man fire up a huge cigar outside of the block of restaurants at the southeast corner of Mentor and Colorado (near Europane). Really, it was the first time I can remember running into someone smoking right outside of a restaurant in Pasadena in a long time.
UNDER THE DOME
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