Securing smoking sections on pier no laughing matter
CITY HALL — Smoking areas on the 1,600-foot-long Santa Monica Pier will measure 5 feet by 15 feet, be striped and have signs in both English and Spanish to help them stand out. Just one question remains — where to put them.
Three months after local leaders attracted headlines worldwide for making it a crime to smoke on local beaches and the pier, they still can’t agree on how many smoking areas should be set aside, or where they should be placed. Discussions on the matter fell apart at this week’s City Council meeting.
Staffers at City Hall recommended nine areas be set aside, from one end of the pier to the other. They also suggested an exception in the law be made for film actors on camera, and that it be left to pier restaurants whether they want to join the ban.
Members of the council disagreed on how many spots should be set aside, and also split over where the smoking zones should be located.
One used the forum to voice her fundamental opposition to the law.
“We’re talking about the reasons we’re doing this were health risks, but we say, ‘Hey, let people park SUVs, where there (are) no emission standards on the pier,” said City Councilwoman Pam O’Connor. “We don’t talk about that. We don’t talk about the health risks of the food that’s served on the pier. We’re not banning that. We’re not jumping into that and delving into that and regulating that. But we’ve singled out this health risk — not the others, but this health risk.”
The nine spots that staff proposed be designated smoking areas include a gazebo on the southeast corner of the pier; a temporary area for events on the south rail in the pier parking lot; a spot in the center of the pier near the restrooms; on the south rail next to the amusement area called Pacific Park; another area near the restrooms in Pacific Park; along the south rail on the lower fishing deck; on the upper deck near another set of restrooms; and on the upper and lower fishing decks on the north side. Each area is located 135 to 450 feet from the next, staffers said.
Mayor Richard Bloom and City Councilman Ken Genser both agreed that nine designated smoking areas were too many for the pier, but split with City Councilman Kevin McKeown over which spots made sense.
“Space No. 8 is right above space No. 9,” Genser said. “Those are probably the most, at least in my view — I was there alone, so don’t laugh at me here — romantic view of the city, I mean when you look back at the city from those spaces. And to have those be smoky is, I think, just kind of wrong.”
Bloom responded by saying, jokingly, “Maybe we can go together next time,” to which Genser replied, “Well, fine. I’d love to Mayor Bloom.”
Not all were laughing over the designated smoking areas. McKeown was adamant that the gazebo section in the southeast corner of the pier may end up affecting volleyball players on the beach below, adding he was against moving a mid-pier smoking zone to the north end of the pier — something O’Connor suggested.
O’Connor said she wanted at least one smoking area on the north side of the pier.
“I guess, if you’re a smoking couple, you can’t have a romantic view … on the pier,” O’Connor said. “That’s limited only to people who are not smokers, the purer people in society — that’s what we’re saying here.”
McKeown, on the other end of the spectrum, echoed comments from one citizen who spoke during the meeting.
“Let’s not forget that those smoking patios, if we leave them in, are additional smoking places,” McKeown said. “So, by the time we’re done with nine designated spots and the patios of all the restaurants, I’m not exactly sure what we’ve accomplished by making it a supposedly nonsmoking pier.”
Then there was City Councilman Bob Holbrook, who accused his colleagues of micro-managing a decision that was carefully thought out by staffers. In the end, without Holbrook’s vote to approve moving one of the smoking sections to the north side of the pier, O’Connor wouldn’t agree to a compromise hashed out between Bloom, Genser and McKeown, and the motion failed.
City Councilmen Herb Katz and Mike Feinstein were absent.
It was for that reason that Bloom made a motion to table the matter until there was a full council. Afterward, he said he was eager to make progress.
“I’m flexible,” Bloom said. “I think we’re getting into some level of detail that probably is not worthy of the amount of time that we’ve put in into it … The devil is in the details and it seems as though there were three different sets of possibilities working their way around the dais.”
“I think we’re getting into some level of detail that probably is not worthy of the amount of time that we’ve put in into it.” — Mayor Richard Bloom
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 25, 2004. Read the original PDF.