It was already early this morning when the drained City Council, in the manner of two heavyweight prizefighters who have battled each other in slower and slower motion for 15 rounds, staggered over the finish line with a debatably coherent agreement on what seems likely to be the final no-smoking ordinance of the once-dynamic smoking-ban era.
On a date to be determined, probably late summer, smoking, by Council decree, officially will be prohibited in outdoor dining areas, a tentative but still not finalized formulation that contains barely an exception.
Sometimes the Council looked as if it were ghostwalking or wrestling blindfolded with an imaginary foe in soupy fog. Throughout the evening, they parried perspectives on a dozen different definitions of what comprised an “outdoor dining area.”
No Acceptance of Exceptions
Councilman Andy Weissman and Mayor Scott Malsin argued — fruitlessly, as it turned out — for exemptions for eateries or almost-eateries that do not conform to standard definitions — Starbucks, for example, the sizzling new Rush Street, Tender Greens, perhaps the Culver Hotel and other venues.
Watching the Councilmen stubbornly and helplessly argue their opposing positions without hope of a breakthrough, Dep. City Atty. Heather Baker said if they would merely agree on a general tone and direction for the ordinance, city staff would craft precise lan guage for the next meeting.
Inartfully, she was strongly rejected.
Meanwhile, the clock kept running.
Down to 3 hardy — or homeless or unhappily married — people in the Council Chambers audience for the closing scene, the Council probably was a better act to watch than to hear as members descended toward what began to resemble pillow talk.
By 12:45 a.m., the 4 bleary-eyed voting members of the Council were so fatigued from a long night of war with each other that when Mayor Malsin asked someone, anyone, to make a motion on the final topic, no one responded. If this had been radio, frustrated listeners would have changed the station or pounded the set for a response.
The Tongue-Holding Cat Was Busy
Regardless of whether his colleagues had nodded off or were paralyzed by a sonorous, slow-motion dispute over details and distinctions over what constituted a dining area, Mr. Weissman stepped up twice and became a hero-times-two.
Mr. Weissman’s motion called for the outright out of doors ban to carry 2 exemptions — unenclosed areas of bars where food is not served and on those occasions when restaurants close to the public and host private parties.
With Councilman Mehaul O’Leary, a pub owner by day, recusing himself from the entire discussion to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, the Council became lodged in a hardline 2 to 2 tie on exactly how to finesse the desirable nuances in an ordinance calling for “no smoking in outdoor dining areas.”
(Unable to participate, Mr. O’Leary took the slightly unorthodox step of going into the audience, and from there lobbying the Council to consider exemptions, meaning his own popular Washington Boulevard pub.)
Vice Mayor Gary Silbiger and member Chris Armenta were the literalists in this long, long argument that was not heated so much as it was foot-dragging. Sort of like watching an inchworm walk across the floor of the Coliseum.
And back, while you held your breath.
All the Way
Mr. Armenta and Mr. Silbiger contended that if you are going to ban smoking, then the City Council should go all the way and forbid it everywhere. “Do this in the name of consistency,” said Mr. Armenta. “If 86 percent of people no longer smoke, as surveys show,” said Mr. Silbiger, “then banning smoking should help restaurants. It should bring back people who left for that reason. Gotta be good for their business.”
Mr. Malsin and Mr. Weissman clung to their contention in support of select exemptions.
Mr. Silbiger and Mr. Armenta reluctantly seemed to accept as an exception “unenclosed areas of bars where food is not served.”
But they held firmly to their opposition to making an exception for “private parties at restaurants closed to the public.”
Throughout the wrangling, Ms. Baker, from the City Attorney’s office, offered her services, and each time she was turned down.
Who Will Break up the Logjam?
At 10 minutes until 1, Mr. Weissman looked down the dais through tired eyes at the 2 to 2 tie and decided movement was mandatory.
With Mr. Armenta and Mr. Silbiger not budging on their stand against exempting private parties, he gave in. He agreed to withdraw “private parties” from his motion which quickly turned into a 4 to 0 ban approval vote.
“I can count,” Mr. Weissman, ever the voice of moderation and peacemaking, said in describing his motivation.
Even though his side had as good of a chance of prevailing as the other, he conceded, he said, “because I thought it was important to get a draft of the resolution under way.
“You can always live to fight another day.”
The slow-motion 3-hour walk through molasses is “one of the perils,” Mr. Weissman said, of late-night meetings that invariably morph into unfriendly marathons.
“In those circumstances,” he said, “you may retain your energy, but your passion gets lost.”
But, he added, if the debate had been conducted 5 hours earlier, when everybody in the room was more alert, he could not have been sure the outcome would have been different.
Anybody Here Happy?
What was clear was that none of the worn down combatants left with a semblance of conquest.
Mr. Armenta said he was searching for consistency in the smoking ban, and he was not convinced that had been attained.
Of the final form, Mr. Silbiger said, “It’s not as good as it should be.”
Mr. Malsin, a committed cigarist who nevertheless supported the ban, hmphed that the resolution was rather a waste since there are about as many smokers in restaurant dining areas as there are green elephants.
“I am a little surprised we are still having this discussion,” Mr. Weissman said early in the evening. But by bedtime, the pragmatist came closest to satisfaction, reasoning that there will be future opportunities to recover what may be temporarily lost from the original resolution.
Outside of City Hall, they lead very separate lives, and the meeting that started Monday evening at 7:20 did not weld them any closer together.
COUNCIL NOTES — Spinning an uncomplicated topic into an elongated taffy pull, the Council, by 5 to 0, said that if developers of the still mysterious Washington/Nation complex wanted to exceed city density standards, as a tradeoff they could choose from a menu of options to provide a bonus for the community, such as extra parking, streetscape improvement or a small park…Neil Rubenstein, for years one of Culver City’s most perspicacious volunteers, was among a tiny group honored by the Council for its generosity…Finally, an oddity: The Council brushed aside vehement protests from neighbors in approving a scheme to subdivide a near-Downtown address, 4227 Ince, from a 2-family property into a 3-condo property. City staffers successfully maintained that even though the number of persons living at the address would be greatly increased, it would not affect the rhythms of the neighborhood. Vice Mayor Silbiger spoke strongly in support of the angry residents, but then, in a surprise, voted against the stand he had just taken…
