Challenge to Smoking Ban

* Shame on the Hospitality Commission and the tobacco industry money which supports them (“Smoking Ban Kicks In at All L.A. Restaurants,” Aug. 3). We, the people of L.A., through our elected representatives, have spoken. We want indoor air that is free of the pollution of secondhand smoke. The tobacco industry, fearing a major loss of market for its product, is pulling out all the stops to put a halt to the restaurant smoking ban. They talk about individual rights and loss of business in L.A. This is just a smoke screen. We nonsmokers have a greater right to clean air than the smoker does to pollute. And most of the communities surrounding L.A. are considering smoking bans or have already done so.

In the past, tobacco producers have spent lots of money trying to defeat local ordinances that restricted smoking. These attempts ended up costing taxpayers substantial sums as well, because they involved court cases and special elections. How many taxpayer dollars is the Hospitality Commission willing to waste? It’s time the tobacco industry put the public good above its profits. Leave Los Angeles alone!

MIKE SQUIRES

North Hollywood

* Regarding the flap about the smoking ban in restaurants, a wise woman I know offers an idea that makes ultimate sense: Let any restaurant that so chooses post a highly visible sign at the entrance that reads “Smoking Allowed,” and let the public decide.

IRWIN ROSTEN

Los Angeles

* Is there no end to which the special interest groups of the tobacco industry will go to protect their foul, disease-producing business? Restaurant owners, faced with the unlikely possibility that their business may be off as a result of a smoking ban, have become willing confederates of this industry’s last gasp. Faced with no longer having the numbers to support them, they have taken to manipulating the voting process. Fortunately, our system worked and revealed this sham for what it is.

Restaurant business will not suffer. On the contrary, it will be a substantial relief to the vast majority of the nonsmoking public whose meals have been ruined by this toxic intrusion.

Until the last smoker puts out the last cigarette the tobacco industry will never face the fact that its business is dying. Unfortunately, though, not quicker than the people who use its product.

KEN and MARI WEISS

Sherman Oaks