COSTA MESA : Mall Ready for Start of Ban on Smoking

Most South Coast Plaza employees spent the weekend gearing up for the mall’s ban on smoking--effective today--by installing no-smoking signs and removing ashtrays.

“We’re going to have plenty of ashtrays,” said James Fearn, manager of The Tinder Box, a smoke shop in the mall. “The air’s probably cleaner in here (with the smoke) than it is outside.”

While most store employees and customers preferred the ban, some smokers said they would take their money to malls that allow them to light up.

The mall is eliminating smoking out of “concern for the safety of our customers and employees,” said South Coast Plaza spokeswoman Jan Roberts, reading from a press release.

“We’d been considering this for some period of time, but the final impetus was the recent (U.S.) Environmental Protection Agency report” linking secondhand smoke to lung cancer, she said.

Smoking will be allowed in designated areas near mall entrances, Roberts said. Restaurants will maintain smoking sections, she said, but some of them are considering banning all smoking.

Roberts said malls with similar nonsmoking policies include the nation’s largest, the Mall of America in Minneapolis, the Houston Galleria and the Mall of Orange, which has a less restrictive policy.

“I think (the ban) will be excellent,” said Anne Wilson, manager of the Body Shop, a fragrance boutique. Wilson said the new smoking areas were more than ample.

“It wouldn’t be very nice to be selling perfume, but have everything smell like smoke,” said employee Louise O’Rourke.

Others said the ban is unfair.

“I understand no smoking in stores, and I fully go along with that,” said Ron Olson, 54, of Lake Forest, who has smoked for 40 years, “but I think that they’re carrying it too far.”

Olson said he likes to relax on mall benches by smoking while his wife shops.

“I’m not going to stand in some corner or sit in a restaurant all day while my wife shops,” he said, referring to the mall’s new policy. “I’m not going to give up smoking so she can go shopping.”

“I can go to Fashion Island,” said Olson between puffs of a cigarette. “They have most of the same stores there.”

That attitude has failed to rile store managers.

“I don’t think someone with nine Gap bags and stuff from Bullock’s is going to be kicked out of the mall” for smoking, said Art Wendlant, the manager of Harris & Frank, a men’s clothing store.

“South Coast Plaza tends to be a very health-conscious community,” Wendlant said. “The anti-smoking lobby is strong here.”

Pete Young of Santa Ana agreed. The mall is “buckling under to special interests,” he said.

“I look at it as discrimination because you’re singling out a single class of person,” said Young, who’s been smoking 28 of his 40 years and now lights up two packs a day. “I think (the ban) is pretty stupid.”

The majority seemed to be pleased with the ban.

“I’m glad there’s no smoking in here,” said Inoke Lanji, an 18-year-old mall security guard. Lanji, a Saddleback College football player, said that even the slightest amount of smoke bothers him. “Some people say that it’s not fair . . . but it’ll keep our environment straight,” he said.