Rudy Cole and Associates

This article is part of the Tobacco portal on Sourcewatch funded from 2006 - 2009 by the American Legacy Foundation.

Rudy Cole and Associates was a public affairs consulting agency that worked with the tobacco industry in the early 1990s to oppose smoking ordinances in California. Rudy Cole served as head of the Beverly Hills Restaurant Association, a tobacco industry front group set up to oppose a law ending smoking in Beverly Hills restaurants.[1] Cole carried out his work for the industry through the public relations firm of Ogilvy and Mather.[2]

A 1991 Tobacco Institute memo outlines the tobacco industry's strategy to combat what it perceived as the "unprecedented threat of workplace and restaurant smoking ban actions at the local level in California." The memo is from Robert S. McAdam, Vice President of Special Projects at the Tobacco Institute, and was sent to Kurt Malmgren, Senior Vice President of State Activities at the Tobacco Institute. McAdam discusses the industry's coordination of local opposition efforts, which includes using "surrogates," or front organizations that the industry creates to do it bidding at the local level. McAdam identifies such a surrogate group called "Restaurants for a Sound Voluntary Policy" which was active in Los Angeles, Bellflower and Culver City during that time that was operated by Rudy Cole.

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