Tonight: Smoking Ban, Taxi Fines, $9.5M More for Expo

If approved Tuesday night by the City Council, Santa Monica will ban smoking at all newly constructed residential units and hotels.

Aimed at reducing residents and tourists' exposure to second-hand smoke, the proposed ban would also: 

• Apply to newly vacated residential units.
• Require that all existing residential units in multi-unit properties be designated as either smoking or non-smoking.
• Mandate apartment owners and homeowners' associations keep updated rosters of all units’ smoking statuses, and make them available to current and prospective occupants.

“I think we can all agree that there’s no doubt that secondhand smoke is dangerous," said Vice Mayor Gleam Davis when the council first took up the issue in June.

As proposed, however, enforcement would be fairly lax. The new law would require that violations first be addressed through "an informal effort." If that failed, the violator could be brought to small claims court and forced to pay damages.

"As with other areas of smoking enforcement in the city during the past 12 years, education, awareness and informal resolution should be the main means of effectuating the law," City Attorney Marsha Jones Moutrie wrote in a memo. "These have proven effective in the past."

It was also during that June meeting that the City Council opted to require taxicab drivers to adhere to city-set meter rates ($2.85 for the first 1/9th mile, then $2.70 per mile and a flat rate for airport travel). On Tuesday, it will consider will consider a significant hike to fines imposed on taxicab drivers who charge their own rates.

City staffers are recommending the fine increase from $250 to $1,000, making the penalty more consistent with charges for other “serious taxicab misconduct” and "to create consistency and predictability in the rates paid by a passenger, regardless of the taxicab company hired."

A third big ticket item on the night's agenda calls for spending $9.5 million for final engineering of and enhancements to plans for two of Santa Monica's stations, and beginning engineering of the third station.

The enhancements to the Bergamot and 26th Street and the Memorial Park and 17th Street stations include additional platforms, station and ticketing area canopies and tile, among others.

The City Council meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. in Council Chambers in , at 1685 Main St.

Also on Tuesday, the council will consider:

• Hiring consultants  WorleyParsons at the cost of  $106,273 while the city begins prep work to design a treatment facility for the Olympic Basin, contaminated with volatile organic compounds from various manufacturing/commercial activities.

• Approving an agreement with Steve Henry and Fourth and Broadway, LLC to build a new, five-story, structure consisting of commercial outlets on the ground floor with 56 residential units above.

• Spending $200,420 to replace the cracking tennis and basketball courts slabs at .

To view the night's agenda in its entirety, visit the city's website here.