HONOLULU -- A proposal to ban smoking in all Oahu restaurants moved forward in the Honolulu City Council, despite pleas from the restaurant industry to delay implementation of a ban.

The bill would ban smoking in the eating areas of restaurants, but would continue to allow smoking in bar areas.

Some restaurateur told councilmembers that they fear their businesses, which have already been hit by the tourism freefall after Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, will take an even bigger hit with a smoking ban.

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"For them to have not another reason, aside from the terrorist attacks, to not come to Hawaii, because they can't smoke and be on vacation, and do what they want, it really will hurt us economicly," Richard Wong of Tanaka of Tokyo said.

But health advocates say that a restaurant smoking ban would save lives and make workplaces safer for those in the food industry.

"As a family who dines out frequently, we leave a restaurant if there is too much cigarette smoke," nurse and cancer surviver Beth Freitas said. "The restaurant employees do not have this choice or this option."

A 1999 study funded by the National Cancer Institute found that smoking bans did not adversely affect tourist business. The study of cities like Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco, found most places either increased tourist revenue or didn't change after smoke-free restaurant laws took effect.

"Now is exactly the wrong time to take up this measure, and I would recommend that the bill be held off until next year," Pat McCain of the Hawaii Restaurant Association said. "At that point, Hawaii will have had a chance to recover from our economic crisis that we are now struggling through."

But the state Health Department called that claim a delaying tactic.

"Eight years ago, it was not the right time. Today, it's claimed that it might not be the right time. And I fear that in eight more years, it might not be claimed to be the right time," Health Department spokesman Julian Lipscher told coucilmembers.

Three of four members on the council's public safety committee voted to move the smoking ban to a public hearing, including Windward Oahu councilman Steve Holmes.

"It's time we started thinking of them as a terrorist organization," he said of the tobacco industry. "It's time that we started having some moral outrage about the impact on our economy of the deaths that are caused by tobacco-related disease."

Rene Mansho, who voted against the last smoking ban proposal to come before the council, was the only one to oppose the measure in committee.

"Maybe you might want to hear it at another time to show some sensitivity to the people who are out there, feeling the pain about layoffs and they can't pay their mortgages, their lease rent, their workers comp," she said.