Ordinance to cause problems

The Calabasas smoking ordinance is far more flawed than it's been portrayed in the media. Smoking is prohibited whether or not others are harmed or even annoyed.

In an apartment or condo complex, you cannot smoke on your own balcony or patio if the smoke would drift over to the pool area or parking lot. You can't smoke on a public sidewalk if someone is standing 20 feet away.

The enforcement provisions will give trial lawyers a bountiful new source of revenue. If a person steps out of his car and smokes in front of the Ralphs Market at the Commons at Calabasas, someone standing within 20 feet, called a Private Enforcer under the ordinance, can sue the smoker, Ralphs Market and Rick Caruso and collect both attorney's fees and punitive damages from all of them.

Because insurance policies don't cover punitive damages, will Calabasas businesses and landowners need to hire squadrons of smoke-busters to patrol their properties?

Those opposed to smoking have good intention. But when those intentions are fused with the unbridled ambition of one Calabasas politician craving all the publicity he can get in his race for higher office, the result is an overreaching ordinance. Big Brother has come to Calabasas. Michael Harrison Calabasas