Hermosa Beach City Council has tentatively approved banning tobacco smoking in parks, on the Strand, the PierPlaza, city parking lots and seaside walk streets. The council also moved closer to reintroducing sidewalk dining on a trial basis.
On the smoking front, the council voted 4-1 to draft a smoking-ban ordinance, which City Attorney Michael Jenkins called one of the most comprehensive among cities in the region.
The opposing vote was cast by Councilman Kit Bobko, who facetiously suggested banning tobacco possession altogether in Hermosa.
Other council members said displaced smokers would end up smoking somewhere, and said a downtown area might be designated, such as a paved expanse on Beach Drive behind Strand restaurants.
The council already has banned smoking on the city-owned beach. Some other area cities ban smoking in parks, and Mayor Howard Fishman said neighboring Manhattan Beach has banned Strand smoking.
Before the vote, the council received support for a ban from representatives of the Beach Cities Health District, Surfrider Foundation, the National Council on Alcohol and Drug Dependence, South Bay, and the American Lung Association, and a handful of residents.
Supporters of a ban cited dangers associated with second-hand smoke.
Councilman Michael DiVirgilio said he saw up close the effects of tobacco upon a family member.
“I watched, as a teenager, as my grandfather just shriveled as he tried to breathe,” DiVirgilio said.
On the dining front, the council took a step closer to reintroducing sidewalk dining on a six-month trial basis. A future hearing on the matter will also consider allowing shopkeepers to place merchandise and signs on the sidewalks.
Jeff Duclos cast a lone dissenting vote, saying the plan was “rushed” and “pieced together,” and had “gaping holes.”
Even if approved, the six-month trial would not allow sidewalk dining on upper Pier Avenue, which is regulated by special zoning that accompanied its recent renovation, and on Pacific Coast Highway, where state officials say the sidewalk is too narrow for diners and pedestrians.
Dining tables were driven from commercial areas, primarily along Hermosa Avenue, over the summer, in the council’s “Hermosa Clean Sweep” campaign.
Outdoor dining has continued at businesses such as the Starbucks coffeehouse on Hermosa Avenue, which holds permits for outdoor tables that are bolted to the sidewalk. Outdoor dining also continued on the Pier Plaza, where restaurants hold permits to use large patios on city-owned pavement, and at scattered upper Pier eateries that own scraps of land adjacent to the public sidewalk.
In other matters, Police Chief Greg Savelli introduced the council to a new hire to the Police Department, Capt. Steve Johnson, a 27-year law enforcement veteran.
Johnson has served on the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, where he gained experience in the operation of jails, and in the police departments of Huntington Beach and San Marino.
His wife Patricia is an elementary school teacher and the couple has two children.
And Councilman Jeff Duclos expressed concern over criminal activity such as DUIs, and an armed robbery that occurred in the early hours of Sunday near 16th Street and Monterey Blvd., where a man pointed a gun at a woman who had gotten out of her vehicle to go inside her home, and stole her purse.
