Highlights from Beverly Hills City Hall this year include the election of two new council members in March, deliberation between landlords and tenants over a rent stabilization ordinance and City Council approval of bike lanes to be installed along Santa Monica Boulevard.

The council also approved water rate increases and new smoking regulations for multi-unit housing that will go into effect in the new year.

Smoking

Vice Mayor Julian Gold said earlier this year that he’d support a global ban on tobacco, but the world will have to settle for stricter regulations in Beverly Hills in 2018.

In the new year, smoking will be prohibited in newly leased multi-unit rental housing in Beverly Hills, including renewed or extended occupancies. The ban applies to areas such as balconies, patios and decks, and all indoor and outdoor common areas such as hallways, pathways, lobbies, community rooms and laundry rooms.

In 2019, smoking will be prohibited in all multi-unit dwellings, including rental and owner-occupied dwellings.

Some council members have said they think a citywide ban of tobacco is in the offing, but they took other incremental measures against smoking in 2017.

As of May 5, smoking within 20 feet of open-air dining and public rights-of-way such as sidewalks, alleyways and streets (unless actively passing by) was banned in Beverly Hills. The law included e-cigarettes and marijuana. The ordinance bolstered the city’s existing regulations that banned smoking within five feet of open-air dining, as well as in parks, outdoor events such as the farmers market, outdoor service lines such as a theater box office, and public and private plazas.

Gold, co-chair of the Department of Anesthesiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, has referred to studies – such as one from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention saying nearly 500,000 Americans die from smoking-related illnesses each year, including more than 41,000 from secondhand smoke – to make the case for stringent smoking regulations.

The secondhand smoking risks were the impetus for the multi-unit housing ban. Councilman Lester Friedman said during a council meeting earlier this year that when he was a child, neighbors smoking in an adjacent unit aggravated his asthma. Similar concerns by residents who live next to smokers prevailed when the council adopted the ordinance.

Unlike neighbors including West Hollywood and Los Angeles, Beverly Hills decided to ban recreational cannabis sales, but will allow delivery of medical cannabis within the city.

Water rates

The Beverly Hills City Council voted 3-2 on Dec. 5 to implement a five-year plan for water rate increases.

Under the proposed increase, and based on average water usage, a single-family residential customer will pay an additional $5.50 to $6.50 on each bimonthly bill over the next five years, according to the Beverly Hills Public Works Department. The increase would amount to a $29.52 increase on each bimonthly bill at the end of the five-year period. The rates are set to take effect on Jan. 1 each year from 2018 to 2022. Stormwater, solid waste and wastewater rates will not increase, but they might be subject to future increases.

The increase wasn’t without controversy, particularly from the western portion of West Hollywood that receives water from Beverly Hills. West Hollywood residents, including Councilwoman Lauren Meister, showed up at Beverly Hills City Hall before the vote to voice their opposition to a 25 percent surcharge added to the water bills of Beverly Hills’ West Hollywood customers. West Hollywood residents sent 88 letters of protest to the rate increases prior to the vote, compared to seven from Beverly Hills residents.

A city of Beverly Hills cost allocation study states that a “share of certain costs that have historically been funded from the general fund” are issued to West Hollywood’s Beverly Hills customers. Three cost allocation areas the study addresses are public safety, governmental facilities and right-of-way maintenance.

“Each of these areas represents a service provided for the benefit of the enterprise by the general fund and for which the enterprise should provide reimbursement,” the report reads.

The general fund covers reimbursements from the water enterprise only for ratepayers in Beverly Hills, according to the report. Without the 25 percent surcharge, “Beverly Hills residents would be subsidizing outside city customers,” Shana Epstein, Beverly Hills director of Public Works, said in a previous interview.

In a 3-2 vote to approve the rate increases, Beverly Hills Mayor Lili Bosse dissented, saying the city did not give West Hollywood City Hall enough time to review information they had requested regarding the surcharge. Councilman John Mirisch, a longtime opponent of water rate increases, cast the other no vote.