The ordinance also bans smoking in 80% of all hotel rooms.
Smoking on city streets and sidewalks is excluded from the ordinance, except where within 20 feet of a restricted area, such as an outdoor dining patio or office building entrance.
“I know decisions like these are not easy to make, but it is a huge leap in the right direction,” Amiee Klem, president of the grass-roots organization No Butts Glendale, told the council.
Mayor John Drayman called the ordinance, which makes concessions to restaurants, landlords and public health advocates, an “imperfect” set of regulations, but added that “some give and take has to happen.”
“We won’t be the point city in the state of California, but it’s certainly a very forward-looking ordinance,” he said.
Over the course of four months of intense lobbying and public debate, the ordinance has undergone several changes and is significantly pared down from the all-out citywide ban that was initially proposed.
Still, restaurateurs have said the new ordinance will erase secondhand smoke from all but a few restaurants that have outdoor seating areas large enough to accommodate the required 10-foot separation between the edges of smoking and nonsmoking areas called for in the new ordinance.
Any smoking section will also have to be set off with a rope, a painted line, or “tables and chairs of a specific color,” and be less than 25% of the total seats offered on the outside patio, according to the code amendment.
A last-minute lobbying effort to have that proportion increased to 50% failed as the council spent a significant amount of time making minor, last-minute changes to the ordinance to clarify its intent.
