Smoking Oasis : Indoors: Persecuted puffers have worn out their welcome almost everywhere. But at Northridge Fashion Center mall, there is still a pleasant place to light up.
The smokers’ universe is ever-shrinking.
Once the rulers of a world that allowed smoking everywhere from grocery store aisles to hospital waiting rooms, today’s nicotine addicts are more often relegated to small, closed-off rooms with plastic furniture and bad art.
This season, even the patrons at Dodger Stadium were banned from smoking in seating areas. Instead, they have to huddle together in specially marked-off areas of corridors, looking like a pack of old-time prisoners. (Modern-day prisoners in local jails are not permitted to smoke.)
Last week’s ban on restaurant smoking in Los Angeles took away yet another haven, allowing diners to smoke only in bars and outdoor eating areas.
But smokers, take heart. There is still a light-filled, indoor oasis where you are always welcome to light up, a place with huge ceramic ashtrays, comfortable benches and tastefully chosen greenery.
Bullock’s Court, tucked away in a corner of the Northridge Fashion Center mall, is a little piece of smoking heaven.
On a recent afternoon, Dale Judson was reveling in the unaccustomed freedom to puff.
The 56-year-old Palmdale man drew on a Marlboro as he leaned back into one of the back-fitting garden benches, positioned amid ficus trees and colorful flower beds.
“I just stopped by because I was down here dropping off my fiancee at Packard Bell where she works,†Judson said. “I’m not even here to do any shopping. Here, I can take a break where it’s nice and air conditioned.â€
The courtyard, just steps from a Bullock’s department store, a movie multiplex, several jewelry stores, a software emporium and a card shop, is the only place in the 200-plus-store mall where smoking is still allowed.
“This is just marvelous!†said Janet Lawrence, 74, putting down her packages and easing into a bench.
Lawrence was not smoking. She suffers from pulmonary fibrosis and breathes through a plastic tube under her nose that is attached to a roll-along oxygen tank.
“I was a smoker for 56 years,†said the silver-haired Lawrence. “They say that what I have was not caused by smoking, but of course the smoking must have aggravated it.â€
That did not stop her from tagging along with a friend as he had a cigarette.
“It’s just such a pleasant spot,†said Lawrence with a smile, looking up toward the skylights.
Her friend, who would not give his name, echoed the comments of several smokers in the courtyard when he voiced support for the new restaurant smoking law.
“I think this ban is a good thing,†he said. “If someone is a nonsmoker, I don’t want to make them uncomfortable by blowing smoke in their face.
“It’s no problem for me. I have quit before for weeks at a time,†he said. “Before my heart operation, I stopped for three months.â€
Lawrence gave her friend a cold, hard stare. “You,†she told him, “are a first-class idiot.â€
Judson, of Palmdale, was one of the few mall smokers interviewed who seemed angry about the restaurant ban.
“This is the kind of thing that is hurting this state,†he said. “They will probably cut it out of the bars next. Then nobody will want to come here.â€
Although their habit unites them in the courtyard, the smokers here are hardly a convivial bunch. Like strangers on an elevator, they share the space for a brief time, usually without conversing.
Two women on a bench, however, were willing to compare notes on the new ban.
“It hasn’t hit me yet,†said one, a carefully coiffed woman who identified herself only as Helene. “I just got back from Europe where, you know, they tried this in France and it lasted for about an hour and a half.â€
Her bench mate, Linda Lawson of Granada Hills, nodded in agreement.
“When I go to a Mexican restaurant, I like to sit and have a couple margaritas at the end and smoke,†Lawson said. “They will be losing that money I would have spent on the drinks.â€
“In Europe,†Helene said, “they laugh at us because we pretend to be so interested in democracy, but then we put in all these restrictions.â€
The two women nodded in agreement. They smothered the remains of their cigarettes in the ashtrays, got up and walked off in different directions, into a world less tolerant of their habit. Two new smokers soon took their places on the bench.
