The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 26

B4- WEDNESDAY, JULY 19, 1995 LOS ANGELES TIMES News, people and events in Los Angeles County's communities. Where to Call With News Central Los Angeles: (213) 744-8400 San Fernando Valley: (818) 772-3200 San Gabriel Valley: (818) 303-8955 South Bay: (310) 791-2210 Southeast: (310) 924-8600 Westside: (310)450-6666 0 rFn hp HE Pi ft A KEN HIVELY hot Angela Timet Davidoff of Geneva assistant manager Pam Quinn, left, and manager Lisa Stafford sample their wares in Beverly Hills. The Smoking Light Is On and the Cigar Is the Star The stogie is gaining in popularity, especially among young urbanites. Despite health warnings, upscale smoking lounges are proliferating. Official Business Police jUnion Upset That Chief Will Ijorgo Monthly Meetings Officials at the Los Angeles Police Protective League are miffed over what they call Police Chief Willie L.

Williams' decision not to meet them any longer over issues concerning rank-and-file officers. League President Cliff Ruff said he received word this week from the office of Assistant Chief Ron Banks that Williams no longer would be available to meet with the league at reguljyly scheduled monthly meetings. From nojit, Banks reportedly told league officials, he md take Williams' place. "It disturbs us, because the union is the elected voipe of its membership," he said, accusing Williams of reacting to recent criticisms of himself and his policies. "And for whatever reason, the chief wants to isolate himself from the very people the rank and file officers want to represent them." Police Cmdr.

Tim McBride acknowledged that Banks had contacted the league about taking Williams' place during meetings in the near future. "I talked with the chief today and as far as I was told, he would only be absent for the next two meetings," McBride said. 1 Since he took office, Williams has held 'monthly meetings with league officials to discuss issues such as officers' pay and working iconditions, but that practice was cut short two months ago, Ruff said. i 2 Men Indicted in Growing of Marijuana in Mountains Two men, arrested last month for allegedly growing 4,315 marijuana plants in the Angeles Forest, were indicted Tuesday on federal charges of growing the pot, which was 'valued at $10 million. Terry Joseph Wolf and Charles Kevin Green 'were charged with manufacturing and cultivating marijuana with the intent to distribute, 'and aiding and abetting, U.S.

Forest Service spokeswoman Dianne Cahir said. Federal agents arrested the men on June 26 27 after a lengthy investigation, she said. The plants were found in the San Gabriel (Wilderness Area of the forest near Kratka Ridge, Cahir said. She said the street value of the harvested plants was $10 million. If convicted, Wolf and Green each face i minimum prison sentences of 10 years and fines of up to $4 million, i jCase of Officer on Trial in Videotaped Beating Goes to Jury Jury deliberations began Tuesday in the civil trial of a Compton police officer 'sued for $5 million by a teen-ager he beat with baton last July for interfering with a social Jworker.

Felipe Soltero, 18, wants the panel to find that Officer Michael Jackson used excessive (force in trying to make the July 29 arrest. The plaintiff seeks $5 million in compensation for the injuries he suffered. Soltero also is seeking $1 million in punitive 'damages from Jackson and Compton police Chief Hourie Taylor. Jackson, sent to the Soltero mobile home in a West 156th Street trailer park to help a county 'social worker interview the youth's siblings, 'claims that the teen-ager threatened him and his sister punched the officer, i Jackson's lawyer contends that his client )used "reasonable and necessary" force to protect himself from a combative teen-ager. 1 A neighbor videotaped 59 seconds of the brawl betvieen the Latino youth and the black officer, then sold it to a local news station.

Portions of it were replayed on news programs NEWSLETTERS Westside College's New Chief Is Winning Admirers The new president of Santa Monica College, Piedad F. minces no words about the sorry state of the college she was hired to run. Robertson, the former Massachusetts secretary of education, says the junior college is technologically and organizationally challenged. Besides, the restrooms stink. Robertson's frankness and collaborative management style have won her kudos from formerly leery faculty and staff members.

Many of them had preferred an in-house candidate to replace longtime President Richard Moore, who resigned last fall. "We have met more times in the past two weeks with Robertson than we did with Moore in his 20 years," said Jim Prickett, president of the teachers union. Though credited with building the. school's highly regarded academic standing, Moore apparently neglected fund-raising. "We had a president who involved himself in such things as choosing the colors of the liberal arts building," Prickett said.

STORMY WATERS: The stormy issue of rent control recently overflowed into a discussion about storm water at the Santa Monica City Council. The spat came as the council discussed how to pay for updating the city's storm drains and treatment sys- tern. Two of the six council members at the meeting balked at asking property own- ers to pay the monthly storm water ranging from about $1.50 to $6.50 a. parcel. Without the needed five votes, the new fee seemed destined to go down the drain.

But what if the city's Rent Control Board could be persuaded to allow landlords to pass the charge on to renters? That prospect was enough to gain at; least for now the fifth vote from Councilman Robert Holbrook, an owner of rental property. If the Rent Control Board balks, Holbrook said he will vote against the fee when it comes up for-final approval July 25. STRONG, SILENT TYPE: A very im passive police officer was spotted sitting' in his black-and-white in the Plco-Falr-fax area recently. And he wasn't very smart either. In' fact, the officer was a dummy, as in department store mannequin.

The faux cop, Officer Les, is the Westside traffic squad's answer to a shortage of the real thing. Los Angeles Police Sgt. John Hone said the dummy cop is a decoy used at various locations where there are dan- gerous traffic conditions. "We're doing more with Les," LAPD Lt: Jim Miller said. CALL FORWARDING: The Westside cradle of the car phone epidemic, will' not be getting a new 60-foot-high cellular relay station at Westwood Presbyterian Church on Wilshire Boulevard.

After Westwood neighbors and parents of church preschoolers complained about the alleged dangers of micro- waves from the proposed AirTouch Cellular tower, the church backed out of the deal. Or it could be the feeling of camaraderie that cigar smokers enjoy when discussing their favorite Troya clasico or H. Upmann corona major. Or it could be the glamour of cigar smoking. Cigars and a cigar smoker's image can hardly be separated, whether the smoker wants to be identified as a big shot in business or as an affluent rebel.

Reinforcing the image of success is the increasing number of celebrity smokers, including Bill Clinton, David Letterman, Bill Cosby and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The cigar mania gave the industry a banner year in 1994, when the number of cigars sold increased for the first time after a steady decline since 1970. The strongest growth in the market has come from premium cigars, which cost $1 to more than $20. They are generally hand-rolled and imported and consist of half-leaves of tobacco. And more men in their 20s and 30s are reaching for petit coronas or short, fat robustos.

"The younger crowd has really been picking up on this," said David Peck, manager of Thomas Hinds Tobacconist in Beverly Hills. "When I first started in this field six years ago, I thought cigar smoking was an old man's thing." With the younger generation in mind, Beverly Hills business owner Phillip Dane, 28, has opened a lounge he describes as "sort of House of Blues meets cigar smoking." He said he aims for "more of a hip crowd," offering backgammon, his own Great Dane and background music by Counting Crows. Cigar smoking has also won over a growing number of women. "People used to be incredulous when they saw me smoking a cigar, but more women do it now," Stafford said, drawing on a long, thin Davidoff No. 2.

An increasingly popular venue for women who want to light up a stogie is at cigar or smoker nights specialty dinners held at upscale restaurants. The dinners are usually elegant affairs that team up courses of gourmet food with a variety of cigars. Health care professionals and anti-smoking activists warn smokers that cigars cause cancer, even though the smoke is not inhaled. Cigar smokers run a greater risk than cigarette smokers for cancer of the lip, mouth, larynx and esophagus, said Dr. Vanessa Tatum, spokeswoman for the American Lung Assn.

and a pulmonary specialist. Despite health concerns, it would appear that cigar smoking is re-entering the mainstream. "This is the introduction of cigars to a huge number of people," lounge owner Dane said. "These guys who are young and smoking we may lose one or two. The others are hooked." By SUSAN STEINBERG SPECIAL TO THE TIMES Cigars, the odorous pariahs of the anti-smoking age, are rising from the ashes.

In the past, the cigar has typified fat-cat businessmen and back-room dealers. Now, the stogie is staging a social and economic comeback. Sales have surged, and upwardly mobile urbanites find chic pleasure in lighting up. The new popularity of the high-end cigar has triggered a boom in upscale smoking lounges places that allow the aficionado to purchase or smoke a cigar in a setting akin to a gentlemen's club. On the Westside, a dozen cigar lounges have opened.

Beverly Hills alone has six and counting. "I feel like Beverly Hills is turning into Cigar World," said Lisa Stafford, manager of a highbrow cigar store and lounge, Davidoff of Geneva. Last year, cigar sales nationwide increased 7.3 from 1993, bringing the total number of cigars sold to 2.3 billion, says Norman Sharp, president of the industry group Cigar Assn. of America. The trend has lit up concerns of health care professionals, who say cigar smokers face an increased risk of neck, mouth and lip cancers.

However, it's not the fear of carcinogens that dominates the talk in the plush confines of Nazareth's Fine Cigars, the oldest lounge in Beverly Hills. Owner Nazareth Guluzian presides in the small salon lined with built-in wooden humidors, talking to customers who relax on a pair of diamond-tucked leather couches. Now Guluzian counts a large clientele, many of whom retreat to the lounge in the face of a public hostile to pungent cigars. Divorce attorney Marvin Mitchelson, a smoker for 35 years, said he faces stiff opposition to lighting up at home. "I have 29 rooms in my home," he said, "and I can't smoke in any of them." So what prompts the cigar smoker to brave the wrath of family, friends and strangers? It may be the desire to.be extravagant, spending $21.45 for an Aniversario No.

1 from Davidoff, industry experts and smokers say. nationwide Only in LA. BY STEVE HARVEY QUEEN Fin. Slza 20 30 In (51 I 76 cm) FEDERAL REQUIREMENT RN 19648 COVER: 100 COTTON Mads In U.Si. of Imported Fabric you can reach Sen.

Jesse Helms by dialing (202) BAG OF GAS. "Even in Washington, D.C., phone numbers have seven, not eight, digits," scolded one. That's true. But it's nevertheless still true that you can reach Helms at BAG OF GAS. When you dial the number, the eighth digit simply doesn't register.

As far as that goes, you can also get Helms at BAG OF HA! NOTE: THIS PRODUCT CONTAINS AN AMOUNT OF FEATHERS NOT EXCEEDING THAT ALLOWABLE BY LAW. to, i quizzed by family members the year before and had flunked on several counts. For example, his shoes were two sizes too big (Jesse wore 6V4), and he didn't have a missing finger, as Jesse did. A month after visiting L.A. police, Old Jesse was arrested at a sideshow booth in Santa Monica for impersonating the outlaw.

Illinois authorities eventually identified him as a parole violator named John James, and he was shipped back to that state. Which brings us to the present. We have a hunch the exhumation of the James grave will produce no surprises. It reminds us of a similar search involving a more recent outlaw a few years ago. That operation produced this memorable headline: "Oswald Dug Up It's Him!" SPEAKING OF LAW AND ORDER: A reader proudly faxed us a copy of the tag on his new pillow, showing that it does not break any feather laws (see excerpt).

IT'S NOT JUST HOT AIR: A couple of readers took issue with our assertion that Jesse James the L.A. years As you've no doubt heard, authorities recently dug up the grave of outlaw Jesse James to determine if he's really buried there. We couldn't let this story die without talking about the time Jesse James walked into police headquarters in Los Angeles. "I'm the original Jesse James," he declared. The date was Sept.

8, 1933. Old Jesse, age 87, told perplexed officers that he had just hitchhiked to L.A. after attempting to confess to the governor of Missouri. The governor evidently didn't believe that Old Jesse had faked his supposed 1882 death at the hands of Bob Ford (known to most every Missourian as the Dirty Little Coward Now, Old Jesse said, he wanted to lecture on the evils of crime for a fee. Or if a motion picture director was interested.

But he couldn't get an audience with anyone, including Jesse James the real outlaw's son who was an attorney in L.A. It turned out that Old Jesse had been 1 WE'RE STILL TRYING TO VERIFY THIS ONE: Ice House founder Bob Stane, writing in the Pasadena Weekly, reports that "hunting licenses have been granted by the Fish and Game Department to authorize the culling of an overpopulation of street pantomimists in Old Town Pasadena." The humane trapping of mimes was necessitated, he says, by "late-season shortages of coins, with projections of poor forage and starvation." He advises outdoorsmen that "the species, Pantomimus vulga-rious," may be captured with a variety of devices, including "pig bladders, rubber i chickens, nets or fire hoses." No extra padding in this pillow. We asked a mime for a comment but the question seemed to make him freeze. miscelLAnv: Like Jesse James, Billy the Kid has made news in Southern California. In 1981, the Kid's gravestone was taken from a cemetery in Ft.

Sumner, N.M. It was found in the bedroom of a Huntington Beach truck driver. Of course, some people say the Kid's not really buried in that cemetery. A (I v-MrtMiwA ft The real Jesse James..