CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / PROPOSITION 188 : Tobacco Industry Drops Low Profile and Airs TV Ad

SACRAMENTO — Scrapping their low-profile strategy, tobacco industry backers of Proposition 188 are airing television ads, opening with a public school educator touting the measure as the best way to stop children from smoking.

The television ads open with the face of Nancy Frick, vice principal at a middle school in the Kern County town of Lamont, and switches to a blackboard, on which is written some of the initiative’s provisions.

Frick describes Proposition 188 as the “best way to keep cigarettes away from kids”--even though health experts, physicians and the California PTA are opposed to the initiative on the Nov. 8 ballot, and say the state already has tougher laws to keep children away from cigarettes.

“I’ve been working with kids for 24 years,” Frick says in the ad, which aired in Los Angeles Monday and was to appear in all California television markets Tuesday. “I know what motivates them, and I understand the way they think. I want to stop kids from smoking. Proposition 188 will help do that.”

Opponents decried the ad. Betty DeFea, on the board of the California PTA, which urges a “no” vote on the initiative, called it “unconscionable” that an educator appears on a pro-Proposition 188 advertisement.

“That’s pretty sneaky of the tobacco people,” DeFea said. “It is totally appalling that anyone involved in the schools is coming out on the side of tobacco. It is a terrible message to pass along to children.”

Frick’s voice also is on radio ads, speaking from a longer script, as a school bell rings in the background. A key component of the Yes-on-188 campaign involves provisions dealing with minors’ access to cigarettes.

Contacted at Mountain View Middle School in Lamont, Frick said she decided to appear in the ads, even though she knew that Gov. Pete Wilson recently signed into law a bill aimed at combatting smoking among children. State health officials say the new law is stronger than the initiative.

Frick broke off a telephone interview, saying that she needed to supervise children on the playground. She could not be reached again.

Lee Stitzenberger, strategist for the Yes-on-188 campaign, said Frick has not been paid for her efforts. “She may well take some criticism,” he said.

In Lamont, Frick’s action was approved by John Chavez, superintendent of the 2,600-student school district. Chavez told The Times that Frick called to ask if she could appear in the radio and television ads.

“I told her that as an individual you can do whatever you want,” Chavez said. “I think we have to take a risk if we believe in things.”

Chavez said he was generally unfamiliar with 188, but thought that it would be “one step in the right direction” toward limiting children’s access to cigarettes.

Chavez added that he did not know who was financially backing the measure. When he was told that tobacco companies were funding it, he paused and asked: “Why would they cut their own throats?”

Philip Morris U.S.A., the nation’s largest cigarette maker, has spent $5 million on Proposition 188 so far. R. J. Reynolds Tobacco, the nation’s second-largest cigarette maker, has spent $1.6 million on Proposition 188.

The initiative, which led narrowly among likely voters in a recent Los Angeles Times poll, would repeal all local smoking bans in California and block a statewide ban on smoking in most indoor workplaces from taking effect Jan. 1.

If Proposition 188 becomes law, business owners could set up smoking sections and no longer be forced to ban smoking outright as they must, for example, in Los Angeles.

The initiative would repeal 150 local ordinances that restrict cigarette vending machines, and prohibit local governments from passing new smoking restrictions.

The measure also would increase penalties to a maximum of $2,000 for selling tobacco to minors, and says cigarette vending machines could not be placed in areas accessible to minors unless they are equipped with electronic locking devices controlled by business operators.

But the initiative also might force repeal of the new, tougher anti-smoking law aimed at minors. The law, set to go into effect in January, increases fines for selling tobacco to minors to $6,000, and seeks to give the state Department of Health Services some authority over enforcing laws barring tobacco sales to minors.

Early in the campaign, Stitzenberger said he did not plan to air broadcast spots, and would focus instead on direct-mail appeals aimed at “educating” voters about the initiative.

He changed tactics after two major health foundations put $2 million into an unusual broadcast and newspaper ad campaign aimed at presenting both sides of the debate over Proposition 188.

Stitzenberger calls the nonpartisan effort outrageous, contending that tax-exempt institutions should not be involved in a campaign. He charges that the ads, while designed to be nonpartisan, take a stand against 188 by reporting that the measure is “supported by tobacco companies, and opposed by health groups.”

“What we are going to do is not let the airwaves be dominated by this organization,” Stitzenberger said, explaining the change in strategy.

The Public Media Center, a nonprofit group in San Francisco, received the $2-million grant from the Wellness Foundation and Alliance Health Systems Foundation to design the voter-education campaign.

“We actually believe in the intelligence of the California voter,” said Gary Yates, interim president of Wellness. “We want to make sure people know who was making the arguments, who the key spokes-people were and who the key supporters were.”