Local Smoking Ban Delayed Pending Prop. 188 : Politics: The author of a state anti-smoking law tells Santa Monica council members that their action could have sparked voter support for the tobacco industry-sponsored initiative.

Santa Monica, long on the cutting edge of social experimentation, this week nearly turned the place where everybody knows your name into the place where nobody lets you smoke.

The council was on the verge of joining only a few California cities in banning smoking in all indoor workplaces--including bars.

Then a flicker of political reality set in.

At least two council members were lobbied by Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Brentwood), the author of a tough statewide smoking prohibition set to take effect in January.

Friedman, the council members said, expressed concern that Santa Monica’s approval of a radical anti-smoking law could be counterproductive. He warned them, they said, that it might spark voter support for Proposition 188, a tobacco industry-sponsored measure on the Nov. 8 ballot that would take away the power of cities to regulate smoking.

Partly because of Friedman’s arguments, the City Council agreed late Tuesday night to postpone a vote on the smoking ban in bars until after the election.

In response, the pro-Proposition 188 campaign--trailing badly in public opinion polls--branded Friedman a hypocrite.

Friedman injected himself into a similar controversy in Beverly Hills last month, when the city was preparing to vote on a proposal similar to Santa Monica’s.

Friedman acknowledged this week that he encouraged Santa Monica Councilmen Kelly Olsen and Paul Rosenstein to delay their vote, saying that he felt that their efforts could be more productively spent opposing Proposition 188.

Friedman authored Assembly Bill 13, which was signed by Gov. Pete Wilson in July and will ban smoking in most enclosed workplaces, including restaurants, offices, warehouses and factories, on Jan. 1--unless voters approve Proposition 188.

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Proposition 188 would not only invalidate Friedman’s bill, but would also wipe off the books more than 200 local smoking ordinances, including one in Los Angeles. The proposition would replace these laws with a milder statewide standard that would give businesses and employers more power to decide when and where smoking would be permitted indoors. The initiative’s primary sponsor is the Philip Morris tobacco company, which has spent more than $5 million to promote it.

“As a state legislator, I’m reluctant to interfere with local government,” Friedman said. “But by the same token, I’m not afraid . . . to let them know why I oppose (Proposition) 188.”

Olsen, Rosenstein and Beverly Hills Mayor Vicki Reynolds, who all oppose Proposition 188, characterized their conversations with Friedman as friendly and informational, and denied that he applied political pressure.

“My main motivation was to get people focused on defeating 188,” said Friedman. He said opponents had raised less than $700,000 to counter the tobacco industry’s heavy spending, and had to rely on groups such as city councils to publicize the measure’s drawbacks.

He said his concern that passage of strong local smoking bans might provoke people to support Proposition 188 was “very secondary” in his reasoning.

Nevertheless, Friedman’s actions drew a hot response from Lee Stitzenberger, campaign director of Californians for Statewide Smoking Restrictions, which is promoting Proposition 188.

“Terry Friedman is a total hypocrite,” said Stitzenberger. “If he really believes that the public supports a state-mandated smoking ban, why would he not want the public support of restrictive local ordinances?”

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Friedman’s lobbying of council members showed that he fears that his anti-smoking beliefs are not reflective of his constituents’, Stitzenberger said.

But Santa Monica council member Olsen said he appreciated Friedman’s call.

“I trust him to know--he has more experience with tobacco companies than I do--the political strategy,” Olsen said, adding that he believes that Friedman was protecting AB 13, and in turn protecting his constituents from the dangers of secondhand smoke.

Olsen and the other Santa Monica council members said it would have been pointless to go to the trouble of passing a strict local smoking ban when it could be repealed Nov. 8.

Both the Santa Monica and Beverly Hills city councils have announced their opposition to Proposition 188.

“Proposition 188 threatens to strip local governments of local control, and their ability to reflect their constituents’ interests in creating a healthy environment with smoking bans,” Reynolds said, adding: “And if Philip Morris is supporting it, how can anyone believe 188 is a smoking ban?”