WHEN POLICE BRING OUT THE SMOKING GUNS

Apparently There Is No Crime In The City Of San Diego.

No murders or rapists stalk the streets. No muggers and footpads and
cutpurses lurk in the alleys. No car thieves cruise the parking lots.
Throughout the length and breadth of the city, citizens can go about
their affairs without fear of being victimized by miscreants.

At least I assume that's the case. Because if there was any real crime
to attend to, why in the world would the San Diego Police Department
waste time and money sending undercover police officers into bars to
catch people smoking?

Of course, there really is plenty of crime in San Diego. But that
didn't stop six city vice squad cops from staging undercover raids on
10 bars last Thursday night and hanging $100 tickets on two dozen
people for violating the new state law against smoking in bars.

Actually, the San Diego undercover smoking busts weren't the cops'
idea. According to vice aquaad leader Lt. Jim Duncan, the City Council
ordered the crackdown. It wasn't an assignment the vice cops
particularly relished.

"For a lot of those places, the small neighborhood bars, it's a bad
law," Duncan told me. "But it is the law. And they have to comply."

Well, if San Diegans want their cops to troll undercover for bar
smokers, I guess that's their business. But could the same thing
happen here?

>From what I've seen, since the law took effect Jan. 1, an uneasy modus
vivendi has developed in the Orange County bar world: most bars that
are attached to restaurants - which is about 90 percent of the 2,600
bars in the county - are enforcing the smoking ban, while many small
neighborhood bars with high percentages of smoking patrons are
ignoring it.

For example, at a dark little tavern where I occasionally bend an
elbow, a sign on the door says, "This Establishment Permits Smoking."
And almost every patron and employee smokes - me included.

Yeah, yeah, I know some people will denounce me as a scoff-law. And I
will accept that criticism from anyone who has never knowingly driven
36 mph in a 35 mph zone.

Anyway, so far the enforcement of the bar smoking ban in Orange County
hasn't exactly been draconian. According to Marilyn Pritchard, her
office has received complaints against 261 bars, but only a dozen
citations have been issued by local law enforcement agencies. That's
half as many citations in two months as the San Diego vice cops handed
out in one night.

Pritchard says most bars comply with the law after receiving the stern
warning letter that follows a complaint. So she doesn't think there's
any real need for a San Diego-style undercover bar sweep here.

But many bar owner I've talked to think it could happen.

"It's certainly possible," says Tom DiCarlo, owner of the Take 5 bar
in Anaheim and a leader of a bar-owners group called Americans For
Individual Rights, which is trying to have the law repealed. "It's
scary."

On the other hand, maybe such an anti-smoking sweep actually would
herald some really good news for Orange County.

Because if the government sends undercover cops to snoop around
smoking-friendly corner bars, it will mean - or at least it should
mean - that there are no real crimes being committed anywhere else.