The Smoking Ban

[Agglomeration]

(This law is disgusting. I'm a non smoker, but this law could be a precedent for turning New York City into an over-feminized Puritan sheepland, enforced by law. What next, strict noise ordinances? strict limits on establishment capacity? sting operations against those smoking outside establishments? a law requring all retail places to shut down at 10 PM? When will this Puritanization end? Even the Giuliani Administration wasn't this paranoid about secondhand smoke, much less noise or nightlife.)

By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS, Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK - In a smoke-choked Manhattan tavern, Cynthia Candiotti asked a neighbor for a light and took a deep drag on her cigarette, savoring a last barstool puff before the city outlawed smoking in bars and nightclubs.

For Candiotti, 26, the ban is a double whammy: "I can't tell you how many dates with cute guys I've gotten by looking into his eyes while he lights me up. That's as good as smoking."

With fear, loathing and lament, the city of Frank Sinatra, Humphrey Bogart and Philip Morris USA was ushering in the smoke-free age Sunday, one tick after midnight.

Goodbye to the cloying smell of cloves. The wispy white rings that settle into a layer of haze at bars, pubs and nightclubs. The smoker's hack and smelly clothes after a night out, whether you smoked or not. The phone number written on a matchbook cover.

"First they cleaned up Times Square, then they said you couldn't dance in bars or drink a beer in the park. Now you can't even smoke when you go out on the town," said Willie Martinez, 37, who sat, chain-smoking, in an East Village bar. "This is like no-fun city."

"There's one word for this: Ridiculous. Stalinesque. Brutal," interrupted Elliot Kovner, 48, as he added a few choice vulgarities.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg (epitome of PC Evil), a former smoker himself, pushed through the ban with a zeal that angered smokers and even some nonsmokers. He stood firm even when an incensed smoker wearing a Superman suit showed up at City Hall carrying a 12-foot-long ersatz cigarette and a sign threatening him.

Health issues are a priority for Bloomberg, a billionaire who once donated $100 million to Johns Hopkins University.

"Fundamentally, people just don't want the guy next to them smoking," Bloomberg said. "People will adjust very quickly and a lot of lives will be saved."

The ban covers all workplaces, including bars, small restaurants, bingo parlors and other venues not covered by the city's previous smoking law. Owners of establishments could be fined $400 for allowing smoking and eventually could have their business licenses suspended.

A state anti-smoking law passed Wednesday is even tougher, closing a city loophole that granted an exemption for businesses that provide enclosed smoking rooms. That law takes effect this summer.

The bans have led to fears that bars will go out of business and rumors that secret "smoke-easies" will pop up — but of course, New Yorkers can be given to exaggeration.

Proprietors in California complained when a similar rule was enacted four years ago, but business did not drop significantly and polls showed most patrons backed the ban.

About 400 communities nationwide have adopted smoking bans in restaurants, according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation.

But none has New York's history of smoking, from the smoke-filled back rooms of Tammany Hall and the old neon cigarette signs of Times Square to the "loosie" — a single cigarette sold in bodegas for as much as $1 to customers who can't afford a $7 pack. (City and state taxes have lifted cigarette prices to among the nation's highest.)

Until the 1920s, 30 percent of all cigarettes produced in North America were manufactured in the New York metropolitan area.

Philip Morris, long headquartered in midtown Manhattan, announced a few days after the city ban was approved that it would move to Virginia by 2004. Economic reasons, the company said.

Smoking, ban opponents say, is part of the city's in-your-face, adrenaline-fueled culture.

"A ban might work in California," said Eddie Dean, who owns a club called Discotheque and a bar called Tiki Lounge. "New Yorkers are defined as a different kind of person. It's a gruffer place. It's less healthy. People are a little more aggressive. I just can't see them tolerating it."

Back at the Orange Bear in the Tribeca section of Manhattan, Cynthia Candiotti's face was obscured behind a cloud of smoke.

"Smoking and boys have sort of always gone together," she said, considering her cigarette. "Smoking, I'll probably quit. Boys, that's a whole other matter."

[Kris]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/30/nyregion/30SMOK.html

[Agglomeration]

Many people oppose this new law, which was directly proposed by Bloomberg, and for good reason. My opinion is in a second Internet petition I may let loose later:

We Condemn the Politically Correct Attack on New York City’s Nightlife, Including The Anti-Smoking Law

We oppose the citywide and statewide anti-smoking laws prohibiting smoking in all bars, all clubs, and all lounges, and even pool halls and bowling alleys in New York City and New York State. We who have signed the petition (both smokers and non-smokers) condemn this blatant violation of civil rights and blatant pandering to political correctness that has corrupted both California and Massachusetts.

Banning smoking makes no sense when the city has its share of tens of thousands of drug addicts that need treatment; the city is still recovering from a recession that threw 210,000 people out of work after 9-11, and the threat of further terrorist attacks has not fully gone away. All these factors hurt the city’s inhabitants much more extensively than second-hand smoke. Smoking is already prohibited in office buildings, public buildings, most indoor theaters, and public transportation lines, and these can stay. But to take the ban to restaurants, bars, clubs, lounges, bowling alleys, and pool halls (even those with adequate ventilation and fire safety standards) just because some weaklings complained about smoky rooms , is completely absurd and unjustified.

We also oppose this prohibition, because it could also encourage the city and state governments, and the politically correct forces backing the current law, to impose other laws against its famous nightlife, requiring strict noise ordinances that are impossible for any establishment to adapt to, limiting capacity at most establishments, effectively strangling them of revenue, and even a shutdown law that could require virtually all establishments to close as early as 1 AM. That means all concerts, musicals, and even restaurants could be forced to shut down right at 1 AM, even earlier. Even the Giuliani Administration crackdown on nightlife began only after people began overdosing on Ecstasy and other drugs, and club owners did nothing to stop it.

Such restrictive laws could constrict New York’s famous nightlife and turn it into another clone of both Boston and Los Angeles, where virtually all establishments must close after 2 AM, sometimes 1 AM, there is virtually nothing, not even restaurants, to go to at those times, and where all retail places (except 7-Elevens) must shut down after 10 PM . This has the effect of stifling the city economy by limiting the number of night jobs available and driving away customers, restricting the creation of more vital jobs in a time when NY is still recovering from 9-11, is suffering a budget deficit, and overburdening our police officers and firemen who are on high alert for more terrorist attacks and the possibility of a rise in crime.

New York is not Albany, it’s not Boston, and it’s not Los Angeles. It should be none of these three. Thus we call upon the New York City and New York State Governments to reconsider the absurd laws, rescind them as soon as possible, go back to the original restrictions (which work very well), and help keep it from becoming another 9-to-5 Boston clone.

Note: The person who created this petition is a non-smoker. *

[billyblancoNYC]

I agree.

I hate smoke and hate coming home wreaking of smoke, but it's NYC and it's a bar. *Hello, don't go and don't work there...

Also, the city needs to lighten up on bars, clubs (dance and strip), etc. *NYC nightlife has been and should always be a MAJOR part of NYC. *It's why many people are here and it is one major factor that sets us apart from everywhere else.

It annoys me that a business that makes a lot of money for the city and the owners/employees is looked upon as "evil."

Damnit, I'm gonna start ranting, so...

[Agglomeration]

I finally created the petition (read text above) condemning this anti-smoking ban (AND Bloomberg) onto petitiononline.com. Sign it as you see fit.

"Dear Jason M,

Thank you for using our free petition hosting service.
Your "We Condemn the Politically Correct Assault on New York City's Nightlife Including the Unjustified Smoking Ban" petition is now live online at www.PetitionOnline.com, and it will be considered for linking from the PetitionOnline.com directory pages.

The main URL for your petition is:

* http://www.PetitionOnline.com/nycsn609/petition.html

PetitionOnline"

[Agglomeration]

(Forgive me for pressing the issue, but I feel as strongly about the smoking ban as I do about the WTC rebuilding process. And that's not all. In my part of Queens, the authorities actually closed down several bars and clubs over excess person capacity. I mean it. If this keeps up, we may even see these politicians press for a law forcing all establishments to close by 1 AM. God help us all.)

Prohibition is back without any of the fun

Sidney Zion (NY Daily News)

The smart money says that if Saddam Hussein barred smoking, no smart bombs would have been necessary - the Iraqi people would have snuffed him out quicker than a long drag on a Camel or a Cohiba.

But what Saddam would not dare to do, Mike Bloomberg, the Lord Mayor of New York City, accomplished in a year. And George Pataki, El Jefe of the state, did in a day.

Just like that, our leaders vanquished the great tobacco lobby and the powerful restaurant and tavern owners, who only yesterday were seen as holding our politicians as so many pawns in their monied hands.

And here we are, in the freest city in the world, in the greatest state, left to live with prohibition. "Wonderful nice," as my daddy would have said, irony peeling from his lips. But of course, he came from another era, when men and women thumbed their noses at the Puritans whose only concern was that somebody somewhere was having a good time.

Nobody missed a drink in those days, certainly not in New York. Jimmy Walker was our night mayor, Al Smith our wet governor. Speakeasies sprang up like flowers in May.

The prohibitionists put their game over by insisting the devil rum was destroying the health of the American family. It wasn't just the drunk who was hurt, it was his children and the economy - no boozer could work hard in the factories and offices of the nation.

Bloomberg says today that he is protecting bartenders and waiters from the devil weed. Kill yourself if you will, but not the innocent workers who are forced to inhale your cancer sticks.

Pataki not only agrees, he rushes through the Legislature an even harsher law. He can't get a budget passed, but this he does in a day, together with the Democrats in the Assembly and the Republicans in the state Senate.

Of course, neither Lord Bloomberg nor El Jefe asks the bartenders and waiters. I never met one who wants this law. Most of them smoke. I know some who are in their 80s, and they don't even cough. But what do they know? In the Brave New World, the government knows what's good for you.

The sad thing is that few fight it. The tobacco people and the restaurant people threw down their arms like the French Army on the Maginot line. They refused to challenge the fake science on second-hand smoke, thus allowing the full-scale brainwashing of the public. The smokers complained, but they were seen as whiners against the New Order.

How did the sons and daughters of the fighters against government control of our lives turn into supine followers? The health fascists got to them. Reporters and politicians who used to hang together at saloons in Manhattan and Albany now go to gyms. They don't know what people like me are talking about. If you don't drink and don't smoke, you can't imagine what the problem is - there is no problem.

One night at the Players Club in the 1920s, a member called and asked that they send him a case of Scotch. It was Christmas Eve, and the club was in full drinking force.

But who to deliver it to this member at his party? "We got the cop on the beat to run it over," said the president of the Players.

Saddam would do the same, or like the head of the Players, he'd be deposed.

Originally published on April 2, 2003

[Bennie B]

Looks like the war on tobacco just saw its first casualty:
Bouncer Dies, and Family Blames City's Smoking Ban (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/14/nyregion/14STAB.html)

[Agglomeration]

All right. I've had it up to here with this ridiculous ban. I condemn both the killing of the bouncer (the killers will most certainly be imprisoned for a long time) and the stupid law that led to it. How many more fights must erupt before people wake up to this politically correct trash that Bloomie's promoting?

The first petition condemning the smoking ban was deleted for some reason, so I've revitalized it in a new link: http://www.petitiononline.com/nycsm619/

Please sign it. We need to get the message across that this PC trend has to be stopped before either more people die in fights like this or new laws destroying the city's nightlife are passed.

(Edited by Agglomeration at 11:01 am on April 14, 2003)

[Ptarmigan]

The smoking ban is non-sense. I hate smoking with a passion, but this ridiculous. I wish those nannies just shut up. Someone needs to treat them like terrorists.

[Kris]

A Better Smoking Law
To the Editor:

New York City's antismoking law (news article, April 18) could have been parlayed into a big money-maker for the city if enacted differently.

A smoking permit should have been offered, for a price and renewable once a year, as an option to businesses that desired it. The fee would be based on the business's seating capacity. Bars and restaurants would have to display a sign that smoking is permitted, giving the consumer freedom to choose. The operative word is freedom.

ZACH KATSIHTIS
Bardonia, N.Y., April 18, 2003

[Schadenfrau]

Has anyone been hanging out in the bars since the smoking ban took effect?

From what I can tell, business really seems to be down. The Economist reported that it's down by at least 20%, but I would be surprised if it were that little.

[NYatKNIGHT]

The bars seem the same to me, except for more people smoking out on the sidewalk.

[ZippyTheChimp]

I've also not noticed any significant change. In fact, I'm surprised at how transparent it's been. It will take time to
determine if this is successful or not. The same things were said years ago when smoking was banned in office buildings. It's pretty much taken for granted now.

I stopped smoking before there were any anti-smoking laws, but smoking was not permitted in my workplace (electronic equipment). This helped me considerably. During this time, two places were off limits, poker games and bars. It was a rough six months.

If you believe tht 2nd hand smoke is a health hazard, then smoking sections that are not closed off are ridiculous. There are conflicting reports on this subject, but that same debate raged concerning smoking.

I can't make a judgment on the fairness of the law, since it
makes no difference to me; however, none of my friends who smoke are complaining.

[Schadenfrau]

I'll certainly complain. I used to go out about three times a week and have been out twice since the smoking ban, both times to places where I'm legally allowed to smoke. I reckon that I've saved myself quite a bit of money, but I'm going a bit stir-crazy being inside.

[Agglomeration]

(This really pisses me off. If this keeps up we may soon start seeing a proposal for injunctions shutting down the city after 1 AM :angry: ! Sorry if I sound angry but this health zealotry by Bloomberg is getting out of hand. Please sign http://www.petitiononline.com/nycsm619/ and feel free to spread the word.)

SMOKE-BAN ENFORCEMENT BEGINS ISSUING FINES

By STEPHANIE GASKELL (NY POST)

April 30, 2003 -- The city dished out 71 warnings for illegal puffing during the first month of Mayor Bloomberg's smoking ban - and starting tomorrow, bar owners will face fines if they let customers light up.
May 1 will mark the end of the Health Department's one-month "grace period" that helped New Yorkers get used to the law, which bans smoking in all bars and restaurants. During the past month, owners faced only a warning.

But beginning tomorrow, businesses caught violating the law can be fined $200 for the first offense, and face increasing penalties after that.

Three violations within 12 months could cost them their license.

The department has 100 inspectors combing the city for violators, plus an extra dozen who will work night shifts to hit bars and restaurants.

In the past month, inspectors visited more than 3,000 businesses, including unlikely places such as day-care centers, according to spokesman Greg Butler.

They cited 71 establishments, including 65 bars and restaurants.

The city is not citing smokers themselves, just the business owners.

The city law allows smoking in cigar bars that earn more than 10 percent of their revenue from the sale of tobacco products, single-owner operated bars and special smoking rooms. An outdoor cafe may permit smoking in 25 percent of its seats.

But earlier this month, Gov. Pataki signed into law an even tougher smoking ban, which supersedes the city law.

The state law, which takes effect July 23, allows smoking only in cigar bars.

Rob Bookman, president of the New York Nightlife Association, said he doesn't anticipate a large number of bars being shut down because of enforcement of the law.

"It would be hard to see it getting to three tickets," he said. "That would just be stupid."

Bar and restaurant workers agree and say they're ready.

"We began enforcement of the law from Day One, so May 1 doesn't really change anything for us," said Ian Duke, general manager of Prohibition on the Upper West Side.

"People have been very respectful and tolerant of the law."

Jimmy Rodriguez, who owns Jimmy's Downtown on 57th Street, said he's expecting a shipment of big ashtrays today to put out on the sidewalk for smokers who are forced to go outside.

"I've just told my employees to ask people to smoke outside and to be as kind as you can to the guests," he said.

David Rabin, co-owner of Lotus nightclub in the Meatpacking District, is handing out written notices informing his customers of the ban.

"We are very grateful for your business and hope that you will continue to patronize Lotus despite our need to enforce the ban," the letter reads.

The letter also lists e-mail addresses for Pataki, Bloomberg and other politicians so that customers can write to ask them to lift the ban.

[Gunslinger]

Can someone tell me is it all bars that are affected by this ridiculous draconeon law or just those under a certain size/capacity.

It occurs to me job advertisments for bars where smoking is allowed could carry the Surgeons General Warning and those who don't mind or do smoke could work in these places.

How daft is this ?!?!?!?!?

[NYatKNIGHT]

Almost all bars are affected, with the exception of a few who have maintained a tobacco bar status. I know of a few downtown who have ignored the ban altogether - there are definitely some die-hards out there. But most places with outdoor areas still allow smoking at outside tables.

Gunslinger, your idea may be sensible (or not), either way, I'm SURE that every conceivable argument has been tried - to no avail.

[Lightning Homer]

Don't you smell something ? * :cool:

[Kris]

May 16, 2003

Want to Smoke? Go to Hamburg

By JOE JACKSON

LYON, France

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm thinking of leaving New York for a city that's free and tolerant and treats me like an adult. Berlin, maybe, or Barcelona, or even London, the city I left nearly 20 years ago.

I came to live in New York to be a musician and a bohemian, but the last time my band played in the city, in April, there were no fewer than five "No Smoking" signs in our dressing room. Two weeks later in Hamburg, Germany, our dressing room had five ashtrays. You can guess where we felt more welcome.

New York used to have an edge — that sense that something thrilling can happen at any moment and that anyone, not just rich people and tourists, can be a part of it. Now even the bohemians are turning sanctimonious. Singers I know, who got through 20 years of smoky gigs, have become overnight converts to the total smoking ban in New York (though they don't complain about the smoke when they're in Europe). Can't we just be grown up? Besides, a bit of haze in the air makes the lights look better.

The smoking ban is just one part of the strangulation of New York's night life — a crackdown on everything from topless bars to noise — which began under Rudolph Giuliani and has continued under Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Many of us preferred the old X-rated Times Square to the new "Disneyfied" version. Besides, shouldn't a great city be able to tolerate a red-light district?

Nightclubs and bars can't allow their patrons to dance unless they have an expensive, hard-to-obtain cabaret license; clubs are closed if even one customer is found using drugs; and rich condominium owners who move into neighborhoods made fashionable by trendy clubs go to court to complain about the noise.

But the smoking ban is the last straw, the thing that has me packing my bags in utter disgust. And the new state law that is going into effect in July is even more draconian. What exactly is the problem with separate, enclosed, ventilated smoking areas?

I like a couple of cigarettes or a cigar with a drink, and like many other people, I only smoke in bars or nightclubs. Now I can't go to any of my old haunts. Bartenders who were friends have turned into cops, forcing me outside to shiver in the cold and curse under my breath (the bar can also be fined if I make too much noise). I go back inside to find my drink gone, along with my place at the bar. It's no fun. Smokers are being demonized and victimized all out of proportion.

"Get over it," say the anti-smokers. "You're the minority." I thought a great city was a place where all kinds of minorities could thrive. "The smoking ban works in Los Angeles," they say. But Los Angeles has a very different culture, not to mention more space and a better climate for outdoor smoking. "Smoking kills," they say. As an occasional smoker with otherwise healthy habits, I'll take my chances. Health consciousness is important but so are pleasure and freedom of choice.

As for secondhand smoke, there is research that shows it's not nearly as dangerous as some, like Mayor Bloomberg, would have us believe. And common sense tells you that a bit of smoke now and again, just when you're in a bar, isn't going to kill you — especially if you're in a separate nonsmoking section.

There are ways to keep everyone happy. Make high-tech clean-air ventilation units, which are used in many pubs in London, compulsory; they really do suck out most of the smoke from the air. Have separate smoking rooms. Have separate smoking establishments. Stop putting unreasonable restrictions on smoking outdoors; if traffic fumes, garbage trucks, panhandlers and who knows what else can't spoil a tough New Yorker's al fresco supper, surely we can handle a bit of cigarette smoke.

Let employees who smoke, or are prepared to sign some sort of waiver, work the smoking venues. Have smoke-free serving areas and let patrons carry their own drinks into smoking areas. Keep the ban but allow people to apply for exemptions or smoking licenses. Limit the number of licenses so that plenty of places remain smoke free.

See how reasonable (or desperate) we smokers are? We just want somewhere to enjoy a legal product in a sociable environment. This can be resolved in a spirit of tolerance, which is increasingly rare in this increasingly joyless city. Bar and club operators should unite and lobby for fairer laws. Meanwhile, London is looking pretty good. Or Paris, or Moscow. . . .

Joe Jackson, the recording artist, is author of "A Cure for Gravity." His latest album is "Joe Jackson Band: Volume 4."


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[ZippyTheChimp]

Wait a minute. Let's draw a distinction between smoking bars and topless bars.

Spectator sex is the inherent right of every American male.

I never took visiting businessmen out for cigaretes.

[Schadenfrau]

I have.

[NYatKNIGHT]

It's so true - all these crack downs are embarrassing. This isn't Indianapolis. I'd back a red-light district in a heartbeat.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Oh-oh. Before my significant other reads this, I'll amend my last post to include female.

Or I'll need sleeping mitts.

[Agglomeration]

I wouldn't go as far to bring back red-light districts, certainly not to Times Square or elsewhere. We don't need hookers or strippers hanging out at every street corner, attracting drug dealers or serial rapists.

But this smoking ban has clearly gone too far, and I've heard reports of some lost business. If this keeps going on any longer, we may have sleep researchers and other health activists calling for curfews to be imposed on the city Boston-style. Let's hope this latter horror doesn't happen.

[TLOZ Link5]

There's really nowhere that we can put a red-light district that's relatively devoid of residents. *People would generally complain about that sort of ::ahem:: business going on in their neighborhood, not to mention that we'd never be able to displace them all to accomodate said businesses.

[NYatKNIGHT]

NIMBYs fight street lights and seven storey buildings, there's no way in hell a red light district could ever pop up in Manhattan. But don't kid yourself, some city streets as they are now are far more dangerous than a government regulated red light district would be.

In New York, you can still go to an all-nude strip club, you can play high stakes black jack, you can drink after 4am, and you can even smoke at a bar. More an more illegal "after hours" places open all the time with every new restriction, just as speakeasies flourished during Prohibition. The city shouldn't be a secret underworld, a little more toleration would go a long way.

[billyblancoNYC]

I think there might be some relatively unused industrial areas that could house a red-light. *Hell, Hunt's Point already has an illegal one, why not clean it up, get it on the tax rolls and "class up the joint?"

[Kris]

Hunts Point doesn't even have a subway stop within its core.


May 19, 2003

No Smoking in New York. See Ya. (5 Letters)

To the Editor:

When I first heard about the new smoking ban, I felt the same way as the recording artist Joe Jackson ("Want to Smoke? Go to Hamburg," Op-Ed, May 16) — that the city was just putting more restrictions on having fun.

I don't smoke, but I've always felt that smoking and drinking do go together. Then a few weeks ago I was in a New York City bar for the first time since the ban was put into place, and I must admit it was a relief to be able to breathe clean air. I'm sure that for people who are addicted to nicotine, it is an inconvenience, but even my friends who are smokers tell me they prefer the cleaner air. Besides, doesn't smoking strain vocal cords? *
NICK FLATTERY
Ridgefield Park, N.J., May 16, 2003
•
To the Editor:

I am sorry that Joe Jackson is thinking about leaving the country because of New York's smoking ban (Op-Ed, May 16). Mr. Jackson should keep in mind that the main reason for this ban was to protect the workers, not just the patrons.

As he stated, there are many compromises that can be made to allow smokers to smoke in establishments without bothering the nonsmoking patrons, but the workers would still be affected. Given the high rate of unemployment, you can't argue that if you don't want to work in a smoking environment, you should get another job. All people should have equal access to employment, which I believe overrides equal access to smoking environments.

Good luck to Mr. Jackson in his search for a new home. I will welcome him back to New York when he finds that any other place he chooses to live in will eventually come up with its own type of smoking regulations that don't suit him.
HEIDI SILVERSTONE
New York, May 16, 2003
•
To the Editor:

Even though I am a lifelong nonsmoker, I agree with Joe Jackson ("Want to Smoke? Go to Hamburg," Op-Ed, May 16). New York's ban is more government intrusion in people's private lives, which ironically seems to be happening more and more in Republican administrations.

If Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg really cares about the health of restaurant and bar workers, how about getting them some good health care coverage? *
DAVID JENKINS
New York, May 16, 2003
•
To the Editor:

The May 16 Op-Ed articles by Joe Jackson and Kirk Douglas about smoking were both right and wrong.

As smokers past and present can attest, it isn't that easy to quit. But it can be done. In my case, in 1967 I was going through three packs a day, until I was overcome with one powerful incentive: fear. I became convinced if I failed to quit I'd be dead in two years or less. I did manage to quit, but it took several weeks and a gradual tapering off.

As for Mr. Jackson, he is wrong to think his smoking could be tolerated by nonsmokers; I became so intolerant of ambient smoke that I gave up one of my favorite passions, bowling. I became aware that the odor of secondhand smoke permeated my clothing, a condition of which I had been previously ignorant.

Smoking is an insidious addiction, and those who are "occasional" smokers are rare indeed. Mr. Jackson can go find freedom to do his thing wherever he pleases, but not in my neighborhood.
STANLEY KUSHNER
Toms River, N.J., May 16, 2003
•
To the Editor:

To Joe Jackson's list of smoke-friendly cities (Op-Ed, May 16) I would add Lisbon, where I attended a business dinner last week. The restaurant was crowded, the buzz lively, and yes, some people were smoking. It seemed to disturb no one, and the ambience was nothing short of energizing.

Why not allow individual establishments to choose whether they are smoking or nonsmoking environments, and, as Mr. Jackson suggested, let the consumer decide? Surely the dictate of free commerce is a cause Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg should support? *
KEN CARLTON
Brooklyn, May 16, 2003


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

(Edited by Christian Wieland at 11:35 am on May 22, 2003)

[Worm in the BigApple]

Haha wow...banning poisonous fumes from being spread throughout a public place? *weep* That's awful! I think every time a person enters a restaurant, they *should* be forced to inhale toxic carcinogens!

---In all seriousness, I feel that this is a good law, a person who enters a public restaurant should not be placed in an environment that is unsafe. Period.

[NYatKNIGHT]

And what do you say about the toxic carcinogens emanating from our cars and buses? We are forced to breathe that! *Weep* Let's ban outdoor dining as well - how can we force workers to work under those conditions!

Where does it end?

It apparently isn't about YOU or any person who enters a public restaurant as you proclaimed. It's about workers, and in some places it's a conundrum. The bartender at Arthur's Tavern (Jazz Club) told me that business is so low they may now close a few nights a week. This place is famous for free jazz every night! What a shame. The three bartenders (who happen to smoke) aren't making the money they used to, and if the place closes they have to go look for another job in a bad economy. Way to look out for the workers! And who cares about small businesses, I guess.

Look, I don't smoke cigarettes and I'm all for no smoking in restaurants. It has been a pleasure to breathe clean air in bars and not come home smelling like an ashtray. But the law is way too restrictive. Can't there be some place where smokers (including many of our tourists) can go and have a beer and a cigarette if they want? You don't have to go there if you don't want to breathe it. You can get off your high horse and go spread carcinogens from your S.U.V. instead.

[Gunslinger]

What I don't understand is why we can't have smoking sections in bars.
I my office in the UK we have a smokers rest room, comfortable chairs and a massive extractor fan keeping the air transparent (well kinda)

In restaurants here we have non-smoking sections and as a smoker with several friends who don't smoke I frequently sit in non-smoking, with no smell of smoke nearby.
We also have a couple of restaurants run by owners from the continent (Spain & France) who have NO non-smoking section and if people complain, a shrug of the shoulders is the only response likely to be forthcoming. There attitude, if you don't want to eat here (because of the smoke) DON'T.
These are 2 very popular restaurants and as such don't need the custom. *
I agree that in those bars with waiter/ress service, smokers could collect their own drinks, unless the bar staff smoke, in which case they could serve/deliver the drinks.

I'm coming to NY for the first time in years, this Sept and would like to sit in a bar and have a drink & smoke, does this ban affect Cigar Bars and if so it looks like the pavement for me !!!

[NYatKNIGHT]

For the most part it is the pavement for you. There are cigar bars, but I'm not sure where they are - yet. Also, if you ask around you'll find some bars that don't care if people smoke - they try to fly under the radar, so I won't post them here. I also know some places that allow smoking late night, say after midnight, when the staff of one is the owner. Furthermore, lots of places have maximized their outdoor areas where you can smoke, and in September the weather is more than pleasant enough to do your partying outside.

[Schadenfrau]

I've been going to Circa Tabac a lot. It's one of the six or so bars not affected by the ban. The scene's really great.

[Kris]

I recently viewed a French program in which the result of a test was that the amount of smoke in a non-smoking section was actually far worse than in the smoking section, probably because of the arched roof - demonstrating the futility of such separations. The latest published study minimalizing the dangers of second-hand smoke was done using a dubious method by two scientists with ties to the tobacco industry. This is just to remind you that you can't dismiss health concerns so easily.

To comment on Joe's remarks:
Nightclubs and bars can't allow their patrons to dance unless they have an expensive, hard-to-obtain cabaret license; clubs are closed if even one customer is found using drugs; and rich condominium owners who move into neighborhoods made fashionable by trendy clubs go to court to complain about the noise.

But the smoking ban is the last straw, the thing that has me packing my bags in utter disgust. And the new state law that is going into effect in July is even more draconian. What exactly is the problem with separate, enclosed, ventilated smoking areas?
What he describes in the first paragraph is outrageous; the smoking ban far less so. His letter is generally exaggerated. But I agree with his proposals:
There are ways to keep everyone happy. Make high-tech clean-air ventilation units, which are used in many pubs in London, compulsory; they really do suck out most of the smoke from the air. Have separate smoking rooms. Have separate smoking establishments. Stop putting unreasonable restrictions on smoking outdoors; if traffic fumes, garbage trucks, panhandlers and who knows what else can't spoil a tough New Yorker's al fresco supper, surely we can handle a bit of cigarette smoke.

Let employees who smoke, or are prepared to sign some sort of waiver, work the smoking venues. Have smoke-free serving areas and let patrons carry their own drinks into smoking areas. Keep the ban but allow people to apply for exemptions or smoking licenses. Limit the number of licenses so that plenty of places remain smoke free.

(Edited by Christian Wieland at 7:38 pm on May 20, 2003)

[Kris]

May 23, 2003

2 Bills Would Soften Smoking Ban Approved 2 Months Ago

By WINNIE HU

ALBANY, May 22 — State legislators are considering two proposals that would weaken a new state smoking ban by allowing people to light up in bars and restaurants that build stand-alone smoking rooms, or are operated by their owners.

The proposals, which were introduced in separate Assembly and Senate bills on Wednesday, come less than two months after the Legislature enacted a tough antismoking law in nearly all workplaces.

These proposals reflect the mounting opposition to the new law among politicians, smokers, and bar and restaurant owners across the state.

The state ban, which goes into effect July 24, would apply to localities that either do not have antismoking laws, or that have less restrictive ones.

In New York City, it would strengthen the ban that went into effect on March 30 by eliminating exemptions for certain businesses.

The proposals, if approved, would amend the state law by essentially incorporating several of the city exemptions, and in some cases, expanding upon them.

For instance, the city ban allows bars and nightclubs to operate separately ventilated smoking rooms for up to three years, while the state ban does not.

The Assembly and Senate proposals would allow the smoking rooms to remain indefinitely in restaurants, as well as bars. The proposals would also restore a city exemption for establishments personally operated by their owners.

In addition, the Senate proposal would provide a tax incentive to those who build smoking rooms by allowing them to deduct the depreciation on such investments over a shorter period. For instance, a restaurant owner who spends $50,000 to create a smoking room would now reap a tax benefit of $320 a year over 39 years. Under the proposed change, the same owner would receive $4,166 a year over three years.

The proposals have drawn support so far from 26 Democratic Assembly members and 11 Republican senators from across the state, including several from New York City. Though many of these lawmakers initially voted for the smoking ban, they now say that it goes too far and will devastate local businesses.

"I did not realize the impact that it would have," said Senator Martin J. Golden of Brooklyn, who is sponsoring the Senate bill. The senator, who owns a catering hall in Bay Ridge, said he had already lost some of his business because customers can no longer smoke under the city ban.

His bill, he said, "is just an addition that allows those who want to smoke an option as well."

"The nonsmoker is not affected here," Mr. Golden said.

Assemblywoman RoAnn M. Destito, who represents the Utica area, said she had received two dozen complaints from local business owners, including one billiard hall owner who spent $66,000 to build a smoking room. She said that even with the proposed changes, the antismoking law would still protect employees from secondhand smoke.

"I believe that we are going a little too far when it comes to the bars and taverns and neighborhood establishments," she said. "This is a way, I believe, that we can maintain the integrity of the smoking ban and still have a compromise."

But several antismoking advocates pounced on the bills today, pledging to block any effort to weaken the smoking ban. "This is very bad," said Russell C. Sciandra, director of the Center for a Tobacco Free New York. "They're trying to gut the law that we just passed."

This week, hundreds of restaurant and bar owners, mainly from upstate New York, temporarily shut down their Quick Draw lottery terminals to protest the state smoking ban. State lottery officials said that Quick Draw ticket sales had dropped by $537,905 since Monday.

In addition, many restaurant and bar owners have lobbied state representatives and circulated petitions among patrons, and some have passed out buttons. One that reads "I vote, I smoke, it's my right" has been distributed at Nothin' Fancy, a restaurant in Vernon.

Abe Acee, the restaurant's owner, said, "If we want to smoke, we should be able to smoke."


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[TLOZ Link5]

I'd be completely fine with pressurized smoking rooms.

[Kris]

July 8, 2003

Smoking Ban Obeyed, or Enforcers Go Easy

By ANDREA ELLIOTT

Restaurants and bars in New York City appear to be complying with the new smoking ban. Only 23 were cited for permitting smoking in May, a tiny fraction of the city's 20,000 bars, restaurants and clubs, officials said yesterday.

The number could also reflect the leniency of city inspectors, who are still trying to educate violators rather than fine them, some restaurant owners and city officials said.

Compliance is encouraged by fines, starting at $200 and shooting up to as much as $2,000 for a third offense in a year, and by the risk of losing licenses to operate.

"We're not seeing a great number of violations, as our numbers make clear," said Sandra Mullin, spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. "There's certainly a combination of enforcement and education going on."

Restaurant and bar workers face a steep learning curve with the new law, which not only bans smoking but also penalizes less obvious signs that smoking may be occurring: the presence of ashtrays or the absence of "No Smoking" signs, each considered a violation with a first-offense fine of $200.

Alain Denneulin, 48, the owner of the Resto Léon at 351 East 12th Street, is still trying to master the new law after three visits by inspectors (yet only one fine, for having ashtrays on a table).

"We knew about the ban, but people were smoking on the tables," Mr. Denneulin said, gesturing to several small round tables on the sidewalk at the entrance.

Smoking is allowed at 25 percent of those tables, under rules permitting some smoking on terraces, an inspector told him.

On later visits by inspectors, Mr. Denneulin learned that smokers outside must be able to see the sky. Their smoke must not be trapped by an awning, which at his club hangs too far forward.

Most of his smoking customers now linger around a small steel bench a few steps from the sidewalk tables, and their noise irritates people who live upstairs.

It is a far cry from the dining culture in Mr. Denneulin's hometown, Antibes, in the south of France.

"You sit down, you eat, you drink, you smoke a cigarette," he said. "That's the way it should be."

Available to help teach restaurant and bar workers the rules of the new nonsmoking era are more than 100 inspectors and a small group of "environmental technicians."

The technicians, recently hired, focus more on spotting smoking-ban violations than do the inspectors, who also inspect for sanitation violations.

There are nine environmental technicians, but the city is budgeted for 12 and will continue hiring, Ms. Mullin said.

The inspectors usually work until 11 p.m. but many are working into the early morning hours checking late-night establishments, she said.

The city has cited 70 restaurants, bars and clubs for violations, including the 23 where people were actually smoking. The city has fielded 500 complaints.

Someone complained about the Players, a private club for theater patrons at 16 Gramercy Park South, said John Martello, its executive director.

Inspectors visited the club a month ago and announced they had received a tip that people were smoking. They quickly spotted a smoker, ashtrays and the absence of conspicuously posted "No Smoking" signs, three violations.

The club, where Mark Twain once smoked with relish, is now free of cigar or cigarette smoke, a ghostly absence from the worn oak floors and the red leather seats.

"We haven't replenished the humidor," Mr. Martello said. "It's bearable for some of these people now, but when we get to December or January, people are going to be climbing the walls or not coming at all."

Most restaurants, bars and clubs have not yet reported the economic effect of the smoking ban, but some signs of hardship are surfacing.

"I am receiving a lot of anecdotal information from various small bars and restaurants that are indicating that their business has suffered considerably," said E. Charles Hunt, executive vice president of the Greater New York City Chapters of the New York State Restaurant Association. "I've had people tell me that their business is off by as much as 50 percent. I think the ones that are feeling it the most are less the restaurants and more the bars and taverns."


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[BlameBloomberg]

The smoking ban makes sense if you are a commie.
Visit www.blamebloomberg.com to show your support for freedom.

[ZippyTheChimp]

A commie!

Now that's dated.

I hope you are properly reporting sales tax on your sales - or I'll tell Mike.

[Kris]

July 23, 2003

If Misery Loves Company, City Smokers Should Be Happy

By PAUL von ZIELBAUER

Tina Kurtzhalts had just finished eating in a small bar and restaurant near Ithaca, N.Y., on Monday when she opened her purse, plucked out a cigarette, fingered her lighter and flicked.

Sniffing the air, Alan Saikkonen, a patron at the next table, quickly turned to her. "You can't smoke in here," he said curtly. "There's not a restaurant in New York State you can smoke in anymore."

In fact, Mrs. Kurtzhalts has until 12:01 a.m. tomorrow, when a tough new state antismoking law will begin, after which it will be easier to start a chinchilla farm in downtown Yonkers than to legally light a cigarette inside a bar or restaurant anywhere in New York State.

To smokers in New York City who already feel abused by the smoking ban that began in the five boroughs in March, this may seem like old news. In fact, it is worse news, because the state law is tougher.

For instance, the city law allows smoking in "cigar bars" where tobacco accounts for at least 10 percent of all revenue; in bars or restaurants that build small, separately ventilated smoking rooms; and in bars that have three or fewer owners and no employees. It also allows 25 percent of a bar or restaurant's outdoor seating to be reserved for smokers.

Under the state law, tobacco bars and the 25-percent rule remain legal, but ventilated smoking rooms are illegal and owner-operated bars with no employees are out of luck.

The only type of bar, it seems, where patrons can regularly smoke are "membership associations" — a V.F.W. or American Legion outpost, maybe — where all workers are volunteers and the bartender "doesn't even have a tip jar," said Russell C. Sciandra, director of the Center for a Tobacco Free New York, which fought for the law.

Though the antismoking laws will grow marginally tougher in New York City beginning tomorrow, the moods of thousands of smokers who live north of the Bronx seem destined to grow markedly darker. For the last several weeks, in a statewide replay of the emotion that played out among city residents in March, interviews with upstate residents revealed either outrage or gratitude toward Albany's politicians.

"You know what this country is becoming?" John Lacher, a construction foreman and regular smoker, asked Monday night from his perch in a bar in Nanuet, Rockland County. "A communist state," he said.

Joan Shaw, whose husband, Ron, owns Rascal's, a working-man's bar in Cayuga County, said she was furious about the law and predicted that it would hurt their business, if not kill it. "It's the first time I ever called my assemblyman and my senator," she said.

On the other hand, there was Josh McCormick, 47, an engineer from New City, who eats out about five nights a week. "Secondary smoke is horrible and dangerous," Mr. McCormick said over a plate of spare ribs and a glass of lemonade.

Some upstate business owners are fighting the new smoking law.

In May and June, 300 or so upstate bar and restaurant owners turned off the State Lottery Division's Quick Draw machines in protest. The boycott cost the state $265,993 in lost revenue, said a spokeswoman for the lottery, Carolyn Hapeman.

Yesterday, the Empire State Restaurant and Tavern Association filed a federal lawsuit in the Northern District of New York to overturn the law. Scott Wexler, the group's executive director, said the suit argues that the state pre-empts existing federal law protecting workers from secondhand smoke. But in an interview yesterday, Mr. Wexler said he did not expect a court to rule on the matter before tomorrow, when the law takes effect.

For most New York City residents who smoke, the new state law may feel more like insult than injury. But to a select few — the owner of a small bar in the East Village, the members of the Iranian-Armenian Society in Queens — it is a curse.

At the Fish Bar on East Fifth Street in the East Village, John Ross, a co-owner who bartends for free, wondered what would come of his dark refuge where perhaps two of three patrons were smoking on Monday night. The city Health Department recently denied the Fish Bar an owner-operator exemption to the city's smoking ban.

"It's just not right," Mr. Ross, from North Wales, said of the city and state laws. "The idea was to save employees from secondhand smoke. Do I have any employees? No."

His is one of 13 city businesses, including the Iranian-Armenian Society, that have applied for exemptions to the city law and been denied. But with the state law looming, even the establishments that received exemptions, like the Polish German Club House in Queens, must either quickly jettison any salaried employees or face a smoke-free future.

James Barrows, a Fish Bar patron who enjoyed chain-smoking over a beer on Monday night, said he had voted for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg but now felt betrayed by him for launching the crusade toward a smokeless New York. But there is still one way for Mr. Barrows, a 30-year-old writer from Brooklyn, to evade the new law, he said.

"Hoboken," he said, gesturing vaguely toward New Jersey. "I'll be visiting Hoboken."


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Kris]

July 25, 2003

What About the Right to Be Stupid?

By CLYDE HABERMAN

VIRTUE triumphed over evil in New York yesterday, a turn of events that would be automatic cause for kicking up one's heels if not for a slight complication: distinguishing the good from the bad was no simple matter in this case.

Virtue came calling in the guise of the new state antismoking law that went into effect yesterday, a ban even sterner than the one that has been the rule in New York City for nearly four months. Lighting up legally in a restaurant or bar is technically still possible under certain circumstances. But happening upon those situations is now only a shade easier than finding a Saddam Hussein poster in an American Legion hall.

The law is virtuous, its supporters say, because public health will greatly improve. Workplaces will be smoke free. Bartenders, waiters and others will breathe clean air, many for the first time. Lives will be saved. Why, bars and restaurants may well enjoy more business than ever.

Those were some of the main points anyway at a vive-le-ban rally held yesterday in front of City Hall — a semblance of normality in a place still reeling from the killings that occurred on Wednesday. Several dozen New Yorkers, many of them healthy-looking young people rounded up for the occasion, turned out to praise the law and its intentions.

"We are changing behavior and saving lives," said David Golub, a regional vice president of the American Cancer Society. This new law, Mr. Golub said, "follows in a series of public health measures to reduce America's addiction to tobacco."

A similar note was struck by Dr. Donna Shelley, chairwoman of a group called the NYC Coalition for a Smoke-Free City. "This is a huge day, a landmark day, in terms of public health in the City of New York," Dr. Shelley said. "We're not saying smokers do not have the right to smoke. Mainly, this is about workers' safety."

But there was — as there will always be — another side to the argument, and its main themes dominated another rally yesterday, held nearby on a stretch of Broadway alongside City Hall Park.

This was the Charge of the Lite Brigade, as in Camel Lite and Winston Lite. At this gathering, the antismoking ban was deemed intolerance masquerading as virtue, an example of a self-satisfied majority's deciding that it knows what is best for the misguided minority who chooses to smoke.

"They are zealots, they are Prohibitionists, and they're after us," said Dennis Gallagher, who manages a restaurant in Port Chester, N.Y.

There were many more people at this rally than the other, several hundred. There were also, it might be noted, many more bodies that were tattooed and pierced — not to mention raspy voices suggesting an intimate acquaintance with the likes of Mr. James Beam and his favorite part of London, Pall Mall.

MANY in the crowd were bar and restaurant owners, who said that the pro-ban forces were dizzy if they believed that business was better now. It has declined under the city law, they said. The only thing that is up, they said, is noise complaints, because of all the smokers taking to the sidewalks. As for arguments about the evil effects of secondhand smoke on bar and restaurant workers, the reaction was, to be polite, Bunk.

"Does anyone know one bartender who died last year from secondhand smoke?" said David Rabin, president of the New York Nightlife Association, a group representing bars, lounges and clubs.

"No!" people in the crowd shouted.

No one defended smoking as smart, let alone virtuous. Rather, the argument typically boiled down to the notion that people had a right to behave as stupidly as they wished in the company of like-minded dopes. This is a city that has thousands and thousands of bars and restaurants catering to all manner of tastes and desires. Is there no way, people asked, to accommodate the minority that wishes to smoke as well as others, including many restaurant employees, who have no problem being around smokers even if they don't smoke themselves?

To Robert Bookman, a lawyer for the Nightlife Association, the issue is how to preserve a measure of choice in a city that prides itself on offering something for everyone.

"There is a sympathy movement that says, `Did we go too far, too fast? Let's take a look at the law again,' at least in relation to bars," Mr. Bookman said. "Maybe there's something that can be done."

Maybe. But not for now. The antiban forces may have had the larger numbers yesterday, but the other side had the power.


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Kris]

July 25, 2003

His Nightmare: A City Forced to Sleep

By ROBIN FINN

AT midafternoon, Lotus, the hyperactive supper club in the schizoid meatpacking district, where the cutting edge lately seems more intent on cloning hipster trends than trimming tenderloin, is sleeping off last night.

The black velvet ropes that flank the club's castle-like entrance after dark are gone. The door is open: how neighborly. No wonder the local community board approved the Lotus contingent's application for a spinoff right across 14th Street. Night life still receives a thumbs-up in this cobblestoned quadrant of a city that, besotted by quality-of-life issues, is in anti-revelry mode.

Except for a couple of huddling promoters, Lotus is deserted. Nobody's stilettos are tattooing the tables to the D.J.'s beat. Silence prevails until management, in the animated form of David Rabin, a small-statured guy with stand-up hair and an upfront manner, materializes from a downstairs office with a glad hand extended and the classic speakeasy greeting: "Hey, want something to drink?" He does not offer an ashtray. Proof of the fallout from the state-and-citywide prohibition against smoking in clubs like his, there's not a spent cigarette butt in sight, nor a whiff of leftover smoke.

This so aggrieves our nonsmoking host, also co-owner of Union Bar, that he has mobilized the city's night-life industry to protest the smoking ban. The kickoff event, this week's "Can the Ban" rally at City Hall Park, is, he guarantees, the start of a concerted siege by a coalition of strange bedfellows: bar owners, restaurant and bar employees, liquor purveyors, union representatives, assorted politicians and, believe it or not, five community boards. "I feel like I'm getting a fast and furious education in politics," he says. So is he tempted to jump in himself? "Oy," he shrugs. As a denial, it lacks oomph.

After a decade spent shaping nightclubs, Mr. Rabin, a lawyer by training, a schmoozer by temperament and not-by-accident president of both the New York Nightlife Association and the Meatpacking District Public Relations Initiative, is determined to reshape a policy that, in his opinion, is detrimental to the public good and the city's image. People are losing jobs. Midtown taverns are losing their happy hour commuter crowd to places like — gasp — Hoboken. Smokers are clogging the sidewalks and creating a noise nuisance in residential areas. What's next, club curfews? The demise of night-life entrepreneurship? He fears so.

"I feel forced to fight this issue, but it's not like we're calling for revocation," he says. "Go back to the 1995 laws: severely restrict smoking in restaurants, allow it in bars and clubs, but only if an air filtration system is installed. This is not about being pro-smoke." Ah, the esoteric principles of an after-dark magnate whose club grossed more than $8 million in 2002, a luminary in an industry that claims to pump $3 billion per year into the city's ailing economy despite getting the cold shoulder from its officials. "They promote the city as if the city stops at 11 p.m. Really, the most exciting stuff happens after 11 p.m."

And that argument about the health hazard to bar employees? Bogus, yawns Mr. Rabin. "Sadly, 60 percent of my staff smokes, but do you think the other 40 percent demands they quit? They care more about their tips. The real quality-of-life impact, and potentially the downfall of our business, is the disruption of residents' lives," he rants. "Right now we're the city that never sleeps because smokers forced outside at three or four in the morning are waking people up. I can see this leading to earlier closing hours, which would be the end of the city that never sleeps."

Mr. Rabin, a "frustrated Jewish jock" who settled for varsity lacrosse at Tufts while longing to be Joe Namath, never smoked and even led a successful campaign for a nonsmoking section at his college dining hall in 1983. "Kind of ironic, huh?" he says, leading the way to a corner banquette where, he proudly points out, the puncture wounds in the cushions "are from customers dancing in their Manolos."
He admits to a fascination for marketing. A favorite slogan was concocted by the city of Las Vegas, where he and his business partner, Will Regan, operate the Manhattan-flavored VBar at the Venetian Hotel, and goes like this: What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas. "Now that's genius!" he gushes. "It's a bit of a sin business we're in, but to me a club is a place where you can drink, dance and maybe meet somebody special from the same or opposite sex: God bless it!" says Mr. Rabin, a gym-friendly 42, who lives on the Upper West Side with his wife, Nicki Lorenzo, a former model, and their son, Tyler.


MR. RABIN says he and Mr. Regan's era of wild clubbing is done: both are more interested in owning and frequenting haute supper clubs than danceterias. "He hates for me to say this, but when we were starting out, his girlfriend was the supermodel, Iman." Hence the gorgeous clientele at Rex, their first club, and the invite to develop Moscow's first model-magnet club, Manhattan Express, a venture interrupted by a coup. "We were given wine, pasta and a gun and told to shut ourselves in our hotel room until it was safe to come out."

His most egregious addiction is Diet Coke — he blames it for the caps on his teeth. Except for bemoaning the impact a chipped cap may have on this photo op, Mr. Rabin, who grew up in Syosset and received his law degree from Columbia, is all smiles. He is exploring new venues in Miami, Los Angeles and Washington. He thinks "Can the Ban" will catch on, that the meatpacking district can repackage itself without turning into SoHo. "SoHo," he intones, "is dead in the water."


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Schadenfrau]

I find it so incredibly irksome that the anti-smokers use language like "virtue" and "enlightened" to describe their crusade. The only thing worse than a meddler is a pious meddler, and these people have the latter down pat.

Between criticizing Jayson Blair for eating Cheez Doodles and protesters for having tattoos, the Times is really outdoing themselves.

[Kris]

July 26, 2003

Report Says Restaurant Jobs Unaffected by Smoking Ban

By PAUL von ZIELBAUER

Employment in New York City restaurants and bars has increased slightly since the law restricting smoking went into effect on March 30, according to city health officials, defying predictions from critics that the industry would be harmed.

City employment figures for that industry show that jobs increased to 164,900 from 155,200 between March 11 and June 11, the Health Department said. That 9,700-job increase, part of a national trend, also represents an acceleration over the same period last year in the rate of jobs created by New York City restaurants and bars, the department added.

The department issued the report this week in response to the New York Nightlife Association and other critics of the new law, who said that the near-ban on smoking would cause restaurants and bars to lose business and, in turn, jettison employees.

"There's no evidence of a negative impact, and if there were a negative impact, we would have seen it," said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the health commissioner. "A lot of the rhetoric in the industry is off the wall."

But Robert Bookman, the lawyer for the New York Nightlife Association, said the city Health Department's report was wrong.

"It's not the facts," he said, adding that he had researched bar and restaurant employment figures from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. "If you compare June 2003 compared to June 2002, employment is down," a trend that dates back to at least 2001, he said.

The Health Department's figures are "politically motivated," Mr. Bookman said. "We're not surprised that unemployment is up, and yes, we do think it's because of the smoking law."

But the majority of research seems to support the city. Studies in New York, California and elsewhere have shown that new restrictions on smoking in restaurants and bars do not result in a drop in business.

"What New York City is experiencing is entirely consistent with what we've seen all across the country, which is that the predictions of people going out of business are baseless," said Russell Sciandra, director of the Center for a Tobacco Free New York, who has lobbied for smoking restrictions.

Dr. Frieden, and the Bloomberg administration, anticipated charges that the ban would harm restaurants. At a news conference the day the city law went into effect, the commissioner noted that on average, three bars and restaurants fail each day in New York City.

"I'm sure that as of today," he said, "they're all going to be our fault."


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[JACKinNYC]

I don't smoke. I've spent a lot of time in bars in New York. I think I've breathed enough smoke and came home with enough smelly clothes to have the right to be happy that I don't have to do either of those anymore. And I don't see any fewer people at bars since the law was enacted.

I have just as much right to be in a bar as a smoker, but the smoker doesn't have the right to make me breathe his or her mass marketed product which has a clearly marked surgeon general's warning informing all who can read at a fourth grade level of the dangers of smoking.

I've been for the ban for as long as I can remember and I'm happy New York City has been added to the growing list of cities where I can go to a bar and have a drink (which, by the way, is the definition of a bar... a place where you can drink) and breathe the air and only the air.

Here's an idea: I'll allow you to blow your smoke in my face if you allow me to throw my drink on yours.

Thank you.








(Edited by JACKinNYC at 9:59 pm on July 26, 2003)

[CountryBoy]

My feelings,if an individual privately owns an establishment it should be up to the individual to decide if smoking is allowed or not.Suppose I own a restaurant and I want to allow smoking,I should be able to post a sign at the entrance advising people that is a smoker friendly establishment ,then the individual that dissapproves of smoking can go do business somewhere else.

[ChicagoRob]

I visited NY last week and stayed with a friend in Queens. *I cannot tell you how pleasant it was not to have to sit in cramped non-smoking areas of resturants like back in Chicago. *For all the hype and negativity spewed from the restaurant associations everywhere bemoaning the smoking bans in NYC and Orlando, Florida, I saw restaurants filled to capacity in Little Italy, greasy spoons in Astoria full of customers, and far fewer people smoking out on the street.

20 years from now people will laugh about the complainers of the smoking ban the way people complained about car seatbelt laws of the 1960s.

[Agglomeration]

It really all depends on the place and the type of customers who go to the establishments. In the area where I live (eastern Queens), there are bars and lounges with no-smoking signs, yet I see people smoking in rear patios without a peep from employees, and in some places people are brazenly lighing up at the bar areas, and the bouncer's don't give a s***. For security reasons I'm not naming these places or their locations, but there are places like that all over the city. :cool: There are many New Yorkers, including many non-smokers, who're resentful of the new law, and I don't expect this feeling to go away for a long time.

As for seat belts, I have friends who never put on seat belts when they drive. I do, but that's my choice.

Regardless, welcome to Wired New York Forum Rob. This is where one can freely discuss the Land of Skyscrapers (Chicago also fits the bill) with his peers and discuss the buildings here, from decorative early-century styles to sleek international-style buildings. By the way, I'm a non-smoker. :wink:

[billyblancoNYC]

Eastern Queens?

[JACKinNYC]

If you don't wear a seatbelt you're not hurting me. Smokers (to generalize) tend to think the world should revolve around them a little more than non-smokers seem to. Such is the nature of the personality of a smoker. It's a "rebellious" thing to start doing in the first place. So if that's a person's attitude going in, it's probably not going to change. In fact, smokers will probably rebel against non-smoking laws partly because it's a rebellious thing to do. So you have to keep that in mind when you hear a smoker complain about not being allowed to smoke in the presence of other human beings while in indoor spaces shared by the public.

We all came into this world as non-smokers. We should all be entitled to not have to breathe smoke. Feel free to smoke in proper places, just as I'll feel free to not breathe your smoke in proper places.



(Edited by JACKinNYC at 5:05 pm on July 28, 2003)

[Schadenfrau]

What do you consider the "proper places"? Would a clearly marked smoking bar be proper?

[Agglomeration]

This is such a divisive issue. I'll only point out that noise complaints have increased in areas with many bars and clubs since the smoking ban took effect, and I fear that some NIMBY's will use this as an excuse to press for tougher noise restrictions, patron capacity limits and even 1 AM curfews. I know this sounds farfetched, but you know how over-sensitive some people are.

Frankly I oppose this smoking ban because of the detrimental effect it's already having on night establishments in many parts of the city. We don't need new restrictions that will ultimately castrate the city's famous nightlife and hurt its economy. Of course the smoking ban isn't the only reason why I hate Mike Bloomberg. He has little regard for how the city operates, and to some extent he wants the NYC to emulate the boring 9-to-5 personality of his native Massachusetts.

Just for the record, I live in Queens, northeast of Flushing Meadow Park. I come to the city often.

[Jasonik]

Good point about the sidewalk noise.
The onus is on the smokers. *

I smoked for years, and quit more times than I can remember, its a bitch. *I have quit now for good and encourage all to use my method which consists of:
1. making a clenched fist
2. looking at the fist
3. saying out loud, "You bastards won't make me start again, you are not going to get my money and kill me too!"
4. aquire and drink a glass of water
5. feel healthy and well hydrated, feel strong and proud
6. repeat as. . . *you know

[Agglomeration]

I have nothing against people who choose to quit smoking. I also repeat Instructions 4 and 5 regularly...LOL

[Goth]

The ban may not of effected business in NYC, but from what i see Upstate it's not going as well. I have seen a real drop in people going out to restaurants to eat. I find it funny in the only State sponcered study they compare groth in restaurants to last years groth in restaurants. Last year hardly anything grew. Why not compare the groth in restaurants to over all business groth for the same time frame. I have a fealing it would not tell the same 'has no effect' story. I would allso like to see a study on the effects on bars only. When it comes to patrons habbits bars and restaurants are like night and day. *I feel if a business wants to go nonsmoking good for them they live or die with their choices. To force businesses to go nonsmoking is at the very least an attack on the business owners rights to run the business as he/she sees fit. No one forces people to go out to eat and if you don't want to work around smoke then find a new job. We will see how strongly New York feels about this unfair attack on business owners rights. Come election time. Unless smokers start voting more get used to it. I am sure there is more to come.

(Edited by Goth at 1:51 pm on Aug. 3, 2003)

[Kris]

September 22, 2003

Groups to Publicize Poll That Supports Smoking Ban

By MICHAEL COOPER

Antismoking groups say they are concerned that the city's new law banning smoking in bars and restaurants is getting a bum rap, so they are planning a campaign to publicize a poll, which they commissioned, showing that the ban enjoys wide support.

The poll, which was taken for a consortium of antismoking groups including the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and the American Cancer Society, found that 70 percent of city voters surveyed said they supported the ban, while 27 percent oppose it.

The antismoking groups hope to use the findings to dispel media reports suggesting that the ban is unpopular and could hurt the elected officials who supported it. They are planning a million-dollar advertising campaign to boost the ban, along with an Internet campaign and a lobbying effort to show local officials that the law is popular.

"Most politicians would kind of climb over each other searching for an issue that has a 70-30 advantage to it," said Jeffrey B. Plaut, a partner at the Global Strategy Group, a political consulting firm, who oversaw the poll. "It has broad support across party lines, race and ethnicity — the notable exception are smokers. This is an issue like kissing babies — it is that kind of a broad-appeal issue."

The poll, of 800 registered New York City voters, was conducted Aug. 24 to 29. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Ever since the city enacted the smoking ban last spring and the state followed suit over the summer, there has been a question of whether the measure would prove to be a political plus or minus for the elected officials who passed it.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the prime force behind the city's ban, has said all along that he expected it to be popular with the roughly 80 percent of New Yorkers who do not smoke. But the quiet approval of nonsmokers has often been drowned out by the complaints of aggrieved smokers who are now forced out onto city sidewalks to light up, and of bar and nightclub owners who say that it is hurting business.

Those complaints are expected to get louder as the cold weather sets in.

The poll commissioned by groups that support the ban reached a different conclusion than a poll that was commissioned last month by a group that opposes the restriction.

Last month's poll — commissioned by the state Conservative Party, which opposes the smoking ban — found that nearly 68 percent of state voters and 63 percent of city voters agreed with the statement, "The politicians went too far when they enacted a total ban on smoking in restaurants and bars."

(The poll by the antismoking groups posed the question: "Earlier this year a law went into effect prohibiting smoking in all workplaces in New York City, including offices, restaurants and bars. Would you say that you support or oppose the law?")

A poll by Quinnipiac University that was taken before the ban was enacted found that a majority of New York City voters supported a total ban in restaurants and bars. Conducted last November, the Quinnipiac poll asked, "Do you favor or oppose a total ban on smoking in restaurants and bars in New York City?" Fifty-four percent said they favored such a ban, and 41 percent said they opposed it.

The campaign commissioned by the antismoking groups will feature print advertisements, television commercials and subway posters, and will be sponsored by the American Legacy Foundation, the public charity that was created with funds from the lawsuit brought by states against the tobacco industry.

The foundation's president, Dr. Cheryl Healton, said that if the ban succeeded in New York City, other areas would follow suit. "To the extent that it works in New York, and that everybody gets behind it," she said, "its potential to accelerate to other places in the nation and the world grows."


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Schadenfrau]

Why don't they actually poll people who go to bars about the smoking ban? Something tells me that the folks at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids aren't exactly party animals.

[Kris]

December 13, 2003

New Rule Allows Bars to Seek Waivers From Smoking Ban

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ALBANY, Dec. 12 (AP) — Bars and other businesses that can prove they lost at least 15 percent of their profits to the state's new smoking ban will be able to apply for waivers in some parts of the state, according to rules released by the Pataki administration on Friday.

The waivers would not apply to bars in New York City, Nassau and Suffolk Counties or other counties that have passed their own smoking bans unless these local governments decide to adopt them.

The new rules allowing waivers were issued by the State Health Department and affect 21 counties. Boroughs and the other 41 counties could adopt the waiver rules as well or establish their own rules, potentially creating different smoking rules in neighboring counties.

Hundreds of business owners have inquired about waivers since the indoor smoking ban went into effect on July 24. Scott Wexler of the Empire State Restaurant and Tavern Association estimated, based on applicants in one county, that perhaps 10 percent of the state's thousands of bars and restaurants could allow smoking if most localities adopt the state's rules.

The rules would allow businesses to apply for waivers to the smoking ban if they:

¶Can show they lost 15 percent of their business since the ban was established compared with similar periods.

¶Are clubs and other membership organizations that use only volunteer workers.

¶Are cigar bars in which at least 10 percent of annual gross income is from the sale of tobacco products and the rental of humidors, excluding vending machines.

The waivers will cover two years and the businesses will be subject to inspection and investigation of complaints. The waivers cannot be transferred with the sale of the establishment, according to the rules. The law contains a provision to create waivers based on financial hardship.

A Health Department spokesman, William Van Slyke, said that the department "worked with local governments, advocates and the business community to develop a reasonable approach and this criteria reflects that effort."

Last week, the State Senate's majority leader, Joseph Bruno, an increasingly vocal foe of smoking, said the Senate would monitor the granting of waivers and whether they are hurting the smoking ban.

Russell Sciandra of the Center for a Tobacco Free New York has said that the 15-percent threshold for lost income is arbitrary. He said the waivers should rarely be issued so that the smoking ban is not undermined.

Todd Alhart, a spokesman for Mr. Pataki, said that the law "requires the Department of Health to develop waiver guidelines, and the department is fulfilling that legal requirement."


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Agglomeration]

Sometimes families can be seen in large restaurants, but otherwise you almost never see moms with children in those night establishments. When was the last time anyone saw a mom with 6-year-old kids in a dark bar, club, or lounge? So what gives? As for that poll, I'm one of the 41% who oppose it.

[Ninjahedge]

They have to keep the ban up, in full, for a full year before people will get off their high asthmatic horses and come back to the bars.

I really don't CARE if it was said to be for the kids, I HATED the smoke in the bars and I am glad they got rid of it.

Thing is, most of the complainers are the smoker/drinker crowd themselves that stated that "the smoke smell" was not enough of a reason to impose a ban (while, ironically, most of them don't smoke at home for the same reason).

It is a health risk, it does stink, stain and litter. Of all the intrusive behavior (Loud music like a boom box, farting, swearing, etc) smoking is the ONLY one where one person could still impose his preference on everyone else. I am not going to go into a bar and spit back out 10% of the beer I drink all over everyone, smokers should not think they are entitled to do the same with their smoke.

If they just found a way to limit or get rid of the smoke itself things would be much better. But from what I have heard, the smokeless sticks are not only poor imitations, but they also look extremely dorkey. (And we all know most people started smoking for the image, not for the smooth rich flavor... :p)

Sorry, my rant.

I have also heard NYC is thinking of passing PAID wavers or licences to the ban soon. Any validity to that rumor?

[Kris]

December 28, 2003

The Smoking Ban: Clear Air, Murky Economics

By WINNIE HU

When New York City banned smoking in its bars and restaurants last March, opponents warned that the tough new law would drive away customers and devastate businesses. Supporters insisted that New Yorkers would quickly adjust.

Nine months later, the impact is hardly so clear cut. An examination of government data, public polls, private surveys and interviews with customers, employees and owners of more than three dozen bars and restaurants around the city shows the law having an impact on some businesses, but certainly not on all.

Many bar owners and managers say the smoking ban has hurt business, eroding profits and, in some cases, forcing them to cut back hours or lay off workers. Others say they have seen virtually no effect.

Some restaurants and bars say that business is fine — even thriving, as the economy improves — particularly in places where food is a main draw. Further, a vast majority of New Yorkers have said in recent polls that they are happy with the new law. One survey shows that many regular restaurantgoers see a smoke-free environment as an attraction.

That does not mean, though, that some city night spots are not hurt by the ban. Happy-hour sales on Friday nights at the Whiskey Ward on the Lower East Side have dropped to barely $100, from $600, a co-owner says, and regulars have disappeared along with the ashtrays.

A co-owner of Patroon, a steakhouse in Midtown, says he no longer sees much of a cigar-puffing, after-dinner crowd. And in the meatpacking district, the owner of Hogs & Heifers, where Julia Roberts was once enticed to dance on the bar, says she is considering laying off four employees.

Then there are the many nuisances wrought by the smoking ban, which bar owners and bartenders say just makes it harder to scrape out a living in an already tough business.

"It's harder to keep track of everybody going in and out," said Chuck Zeilfelder, a bartender at Bourbon Street in Bayside, Queens, who opposes the ban. "It's common for people to leave money on the bar, and that becomes an issue — how much they left. Also, people leave their drinks on the bar and go out. The drinks get thrown out, and then you have to buy them another round on the house."

It is unclear whether the complaints about the smoking ban are anything more than growing pains, as a city that prides itself on its night life adjusts to the far-reaching new law. Certainly, where the city goes from here is of great interest to other places around the world, like Ireland, Norway and Lexington, Ky., which are debating their own versions of the law.

The early evidence, however, is that many businesses are unharmed. In fact, though rumors swirl in an environment where every bit of news is trumpeted by the side it favors, a reporter could not verify that one bar, restaurant or club, of the more than 20,000 in the city, had closed solely because of the smoking ban.

In contrast, the owner-chef at Gotham Bar and Grill, Alfred Portale, says more people are dining at the pink granite bar, where the food is served on black lacquer trays. The bar at the Jazz Standard on East 27th Street remains packed every night, its owner says. And the line only grows longer outside McSorley's Old Ale House on East Seventh Street, the "wonderful saloon" chronicled by the writer Joseph Mitchell, though some patrons have grumbled that they miss having a Marlboro with their house ale.

"Believe it or not, it may be helping us because it's driving people to drink," said McSorley's owner, Matthew Maher.

The city's antismoking law was championed by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who saw it as a health initiative to protect restaurant and bar workers from being exposed to secondhand smoke. In July, the state followed with an even tougher smoking ban.

Even if the city were to repeal its ban, the state's would remain in effect — something that has not seemed to make much difference to the smokers and businesses who continue to blame the mayor for their woes and lobby to have the city's law amended.

The ban does not appear to have deterred businesses from opening in New York City. The New York State Liquor Authority, which issues licenses to establishments that serve alcohol, received 127 applications from city businesses last month, compared to 126 in November 2002. The number of licenses granted by the authority in that same period rose to 106 last month, from 75 the year before.

The city's Health Department, which enforces the smoking ban, has also analyzed monthly employment numbers and found no overall job loss in the food service and drinking industry. Critics have countered that such findings are politically motivated, and cannot show when establishments cut back shifts and absorb revenue losses. But many restaurants and bars refuse to divulge their finances, making it difficult to gauge the validity of their complaints.

Polls back the city's contention that New Yorkers have welcomed the ban. A New York Times poll in June showed that 56 percent of the 962 respondents said they approved of the smoking ban. A Quinnipiac University poll in October found that 62 percent supported the ban.

Tim Zagat, the publisher of restaurant guides, surveyed more than 29,000 of his volunteer reviewers this year and found that 96 percent said they would eat out as much, if not more, with the smoking ban. Only 4 percent said they would eat out less. "I don't care how you cut it," Mr. Zagat said. "I think it's long-term good for business."

The industry counters with its own surveys, some of which depend on voluntary responses. Pollsters say such surveys are deceptive because those most prone to complain are also most prone to respond.

The city chapters of the New York State Restaurant Association mailed out a survey to more than 900 members and found that 88 of the 115 city businesses that responded said they had a decline in bar sales since the smoking ban, and 58 said they had a decline in food sales. In addition, 76 reported that their employees had an unfavorable reaction to the ban, while 18 reported a favorable reaction.

Similarly, an October study commissioned by the Vintners Federation of Ireland interviewed 300 bars and nightclubs in the New York region and found that 66 percent reported fewer customers since the smoking ban, while 15 percent reported more. In all, 78 percent said the impact of the ban on their businesses had been negative.

"The nightclub and bar industry are the collateral damage in the admittedly noble fight to get people to stop smoking," said David Rabin, co-owner of Union Bar and Lotus in Manhattan and president of the New York Nightlife Association.

Sales representatives for wine and liquor companies say the impact has trickled down to them.

They say business has dropped between 20 percent and 40 percent since the smoking ban. Similarly, an association for operators of jukeboxes, pinball machines and other games says that revenues have fallen between 10 and 25 percent at bars and nightclubs in New York City.

"If the people are outside smoking, they're not inside drinking, and they're not inside playing my machines," said Kenneth Goldberg, vice president of the Amusement Music Operators Association.

Indeed, a check by a reporter on two blocks of Bell Boulevard in Bayside and three blocks of Northern Boulevard in Little Neck, both thriving night life strips in Queens, showed some impact from the ban, but more in terms of subtle economic and social changes than closings and layoffs.

Owners and employees reported selling fewer drinks and losing customers before dessert. They complained of the need to watch over drinks and money left on the bar and seats left unoccupied by patrons heading out for a smoke. And bartenders said that tips were down, as were overall tabs, and that longtime customers were resorting to alternatives — hotel rooms, private homes and parks — to indulge their smoking and drinking.

But Danny Meyer, who owns a half-dozen restaurants and night spots in Manhattan, including Union Square Café and Gramercy Tavern, said his businesses had seen no impact. He banned smoking in some of his restaurants in 1990, and they have grown more popular, he said.

Mr. Meyer said that he no longer had to worry about his waiters and customers coughing from the smoke or the nightly squabbles between smoking and nonsmoking tables. One of his best customers, Roger W. Straus, a publisher with Farrar Straus & Giroux, had complained when Mr. Meyer started his ban about being separated from his cigarettes, but later credited the restaurant with helping him to give up smoking, Mr. Meyer said.

"New Yorkers will adapt to almost anything," Mr. Meyer said. "They're not going to quit going to great restaurants just because they can't smoke."

Many bars and nightclubs have adopted coping strategies, with varying degrees of success. At the popular China Club near Times Square, smokers are now directed to a 2,000-square-foot terrace.

"It hasn't impacted us that much," said the owner, Danny Fried, of the ban.

O'Neill's Bar and Restaurant in Midtown laid off three people in April and resorted to novelty events like trivia contests and election-night vigils for races in Ireland. Ciaran Staunton, the owner, says he sees his regulars pass by on the street, toting six-packs of beer to drink at home.

Other bars and taverns, like Broadway Dive on the Upper West Side, are placing new emphasis on their food now that they are selling fewer drinks. Since the ban began, alcoholic beverage sales at the Broadway Dive have fallen about one-third, or between $1,500 and $2,000 a week, its owner said.

Amy Sacco, owner of Lot 61 and Bungalow 8 in West Chelsea, said she had to hire an extra security guard just to make sure the smoking crowd outside does not become unruly.

"It makes the job very unhappy," Ms. Sacco said. "Next thing you know, it's prohibition for cocktails. We're all responsible for policing it. It's such a drag."

"It's just a big headache in a job that had enough headaches to start with," she said.

Ann Farmer contributed reporting for this article.

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Kris]

January 4, 2004

Waiting to Inhale

By MICHAEL BRICK

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/01/04/nyregion/smoke.xlarge.jpg
Dylan Keeler enjoyed an illicit pleasure after midnight last week in a Brooklyn bar. It is clear when the time to light up arrives: it is preceded by a sensation of being unmasked.

Quietly, and without the contraptions or planning of Prohibition, the cigarette smokers of New York have created their own modern rendition of the speakeasy, where their outlawed pleasure can be enjoyed once more. There are no passwords. You just have to wait.

The proper hour can be 11 p.m., or midnight or later still in places where the patrons do not like to go home. There is no schedule, no phone call, no listing in The Village Voice. The moment comes by common assent, by a shared appraising of all the people remaining in the bar and all the forces around them — the darkness of the windows, the breath of the staff.

"I hear from lots of people, especially in the four outer boroughs," said Audrey Silk, a leader of a group that seeks to repeal the city's smoking ban. "They're letting you smoke."

When the ban took effect nine months ago, disagreements over the public health and economic implications prevailed. Some establishments searched for loopholes in the law, like the Oak Bar at the Plaza Hotel, which sought to present itself as a cigar bar exempted from enforcement. In large measure, these efforts failed, and smokers moved to the streets, the warm weather making the ban's first months somewhat easier on them.

Open resistance to the ban has been muted, coming mostly in the form of lawsuits, including one filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan just before Christmas by the Players Club, seeking to overturn the city and state antismoking laws. As the weather has turned, though, smokers have taken up secretive civil disobedience.

In the past few weeks, it has happened in about half a dozen bars that were visited over five or so nights. Smokers themselves discussed the phenomenon freely; bartenders were interviewed with the assurance that they would not be named and that identifying details of their establishments would not be revealed.

In each place, it was clear when the moment to light up had arrived. It was preceded by a sensation of being unmasked — a relief, of sorts — the kind that comes of knowing one is among friends.

It is a phenomenon not unlike what happened to Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's crackdown on jaywalking, when police officers working the streets seemed to decide that, you know what, some New Yorkers were just going to jaywalk at some intersections.

With smoking, too, the setting can be almost as important as the hour of the night. The occasional sudden transformation into a smoking club does not happen in every place. Stay late on a temperate night at Union Pool, a shiny pickup joint in Williamsburg that offers pictures of naked women on the walls and the rattle of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway overhead, and it is likely the moment will never come. There are too many people, and too many windows, and besides, outdoor space is ample.

The opposite also holds. Setting can trump the hour of the night, and smoking can start before 9 p.m., but usually only when the nature of the place is so entwined with notions of decadence and indulgence that few behaviors are questioned. At the Buzzcocks show at Irving Plaza last month, for instance, even the uptight young woman who turned her head to shush other patrons (apparently she was having trouble hearing the punk rock music) held a lighted cigarette.

Ordinarily, though, even in the bars most amenable to smoking, time is the common controlling factor.

There is, for instance, a bright and festively ornamented bar in Brooklyn where a tight group of regulars gathers nightly to drink away the day's frustrations, to work crossword puzzles and argue word derivations. Among other attributes, the place is perhaps the only etymology bar in the city, and its character changes depending on the hour of the day. After a certain point, when only those well-known customers remain, the bartender, who has long since forsworn smoking and drinking, will sometimes lock the door.

And all who remain know the significance of the turning of the bolt.

What happens after the silent declaration that the rules have been lifted is the same wherever you go.

In the far East Village on Christmas night, a silvery Zippo lighter rested on a pack of Marlboro Lights, right there on the bar just a short walk from the Ms. Pac Man machine. The sight was jarring in its familiarity. What bar did those same items not decorate just a year ago?

The smoke that filled the air announced itself, if only because it had been gone long enough to let eyes and noses forget its taste. The smoke-filled bar, it said, was back.

"It never really left," the bartender said, "depending on the time of night or what the clientele is."

Over in a corner, Michael Reiss, of Brooklyn, sat talking with friends. They arranged themselves loosely around a table by a window.

"Smokers in New York City are going to find what they need to do, what they want to do," Mr. Reiss said. "Here, even if you have an outdoor patio, you're going to freeze. You have bars that are going to let it go."

So, knowing that the moment will come, the smokers sit inside these days, and they hold off their cravings as long as they are able. They may even bundle up and go outside once or twice for a light, putting napkins over their drinks like Southern Californians.

In between trips, they wait.

And then the moment comes, and it is like dancing — it is shared and exuberant and wild. It came after midnight one night last week to a dark and narrow room the shape of a railroad apartment in south Brooklyn, where Christmas lights and candles flickered. A sign on the wall announced that smoking was disallowed. Bodies were sloped lazily on couches. A man on a bar stool had his hand inside the low-slung waistline of his date's jeans.

Boots and Converse All-Stars slapped the floor as the revelers negotiated one another, moving and talking and yelling and smoking. They were in for the night. Long after 3 a.m., a bartender out from his post flicked lighted matches at his customer's feet, laughing and watching the matches expire on the wet floor.

"Dance," the bartender cried.

Up and down the bar from the door to the back wall, the air grew thick and tight and noxious and hazy.

"O.K.," said Matt Taylor, 23, a tourist visiting from Texas. "Everyone's smoking cigarettes. I'm just making sure. . . . "

He let the thought trail off, and was quickly reassured that despite what he had read about New York, smoking was permitted in this bar, on this night, at this hour.

His verbal reaction was overwhelmed by the magic of jukebox speakers, through which Joe Strummer announced from somewhere beyond the great divide that he was still, in fact, the all-night drug-prowling wolf who looks so sick in the sun, and furthermore that he was only looking for fun. His voice faded out and Paul Westerberg's replaced it, reminding a flight attendant who once told him not to smoke that she ain't nothing but a waitress in the sky.

"Who's got an extra cigarette?" called the bartender, and it turned out that just about everybody did.


Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Ninjahedge]

Oh scr3w them.

"Wah, I can't sate my addiction"

"Wah, sales are down 5%"

"Wah, all my patrons are drinking in Jersey".

BS.

I am really glad we have the ban, and they should still be strict in enforcing it.

If it lasts a year or two, the numbers will start to balance out again after people get tired of trucking over to Hoboken to puff and drink.

Either that, or NJ will come up with the same law. THAT would be nice!

I think they should just get this whole thing over with and make bars that cater to smokers only. IOW, NO BEER/ALCOHOL!!!! Yeah, you can smoke, have a cigar, whatever. Hell, I would even allow things like Cannabis (sp?) so long as it was kept INSIDE that "speakeasy". But I would like it if they just kept the two seperate.

As a beer drinking blues lover, it is SO much better to go into a place where I don't smell like a wet ashtray when I leave.

Scr3w the "atmosphere".... ;)

[ZippyTheChimp]

You're allowed to say screw here. :wink:

[Schadenfrau]

The freezing cold this week should reveal the true impact of the ban. All the bars I've walked past are nearly empty.

[Ninjahedge]

In all fairness, so are the ones in NJ.

It's COLD! Noone wants to go OUT!!! ;)

[NYatKNIGHT]

The ones I was at last night on First Ave./2nd St. were packed. I also stumbled (literally) to a place on Orchard St. that is a smoking bar - it has some hookahs on a couple tables, and ashtrays everywhere. I went back to watch the hookah smokers to see if it was really tobacco, and to my surprise and minor disappointment, it was. Cool turkish bar called Kush, except for all the smoke.

[Kris]

January 18, 2004

Mayor and Editor, Fussing Over Fuming

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/01/17/nyregion/vani.xlarge.jpg
The editor's letter in Vanity Fair magazine, with Graydon Carter shown next to an ashtray at the offices of Vanity Fair.

It would seem that Vanity Fair, the breathless chronicle of all things glamorous and shiny about New York and Hollywood, would be in love with the 108th mayor of New York City.

For years, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg seemed to embody the same qualities found in many of the magazine's subjects — a love of fancy restaurants, deep pockets for the charity circuit and real estate of considerable size in requisite tropical, European and urban locations.

Further, the editor of Vanity Fair, Graydon Carter, runs in similar social and professional circles as Mr. Bloomberg did in his pre-mayoral, media mogul days, before he began choosing meatloaf on Staten Island over cheese courses at expensive Midtown restaurants. The two share a certain number of accouterments: Manhattan town houses, finely tailored suits and fat Rolodexes. Each has been known to be long on lady friends.

They were, in Mr. Carter's estimation, friends. But that was before Mr. Bloomberg imposed an almost total ban on indoor smoking in public places in New York City, infuriating Mr. Carter, who enjoyed lighting up in restaurants, bars and, according to three summonses he has received from city inspectors, his office at the sleek West 42nd Street headquarters of Condé Nast. Mr. Carter has called the enforcement of the new law harassment, among other things.

"It is an important issue," said Mr. Carter. "It is about freedom and your own civil liberties, and it is about the city. This is not Denver, it is not Seattle, it is a big rough turbine that is fueled by cigarette smoke and food and liquor. People want to go out at night. If your best friend smokes, it makes it very awkward."

Over the last six months, Vanity Fair has been ripping into Mr. Bloomberg on almost a monthly basis, vexing the mayor's staff and angering Mr. Bloomberg at times, too. In September, the magazine ran a lengthy profile of Mr. Bloomberg that was far from flattering, referring to him as "waiflike."

Mr. Carter has also devoted no fewer than three editor's letters to criticizing the mayor. In the latest, in the February issue of the magazine, Mr. Carter says the mayor is "like a husband who returns home after the honeymoon and announces to his new bride that he has decided that henceforth they will be vegans."

For that same issue now on newsstands, Mr. Carter commissioned an article by Christopher Hitchens in which Mr. Hitchens chronicled his minor crime spree throughout the city — feeding pigeons, smoking in a luxury car — painting Mr. Bloomberg's New York as something just short of a police state.

"I did it because I thought it would be fun journalism," Mr. Carter said. "It was to explain something."

He said, "I see some 86-year-old man getting a ticket for feeding birds in the park and I don't get it."

But Bloomberg administration officials say Mr. Carter has crossed a line. "It certainly raises the question of whether it is ethical journalism for an editor to use his magazine to push his agenda," said Edward Skyler, the mayor's press secretary, who last week accused Mr. Carter of ordering up a series of hatchet jobs on his boss.

Buzz Bissinger, who wrote the lengthy profile of Mr. Bloomberg, believes the administration protests too much.

"The piece was generally positive," Mr. Bissinger said. "I concluded that in his own idiosyncratic way, he's been an effective mayor." If the mayor's staff believes otherwise, he said, "It's pathetic."

A seminal song from the 1970's performed by the band War comes to mind: "Why Can't We Be Friends?" A sample verse: "I seen ya around for a long long time. I really remember you when you drank my wine."

Indeed Mr. Carter has drunk Mr. Bloomberg's wine, and snacked on his potpies as well. The two met several years ago when Mr. Bloomberg invited Mr. Carter to lunch near Mr. Bloomberg's corporate headquarters. Mr. Carter was later invited to dinner at Mr. Bloomberg's London and New York homes.

The two shared an affinity for social cachet, with Mr. Bloomberg at points embracing Mr. Carter's endeavors.

When Mr. Carter, 54, stopped playing host for dinner for the Serpentine Gallery in London, Mr. Bloomberg, 61, moved to quickly take it over. When word got out that Vanity Fair would no longer be holding the annual party after the White House Correspondents' dinner, Kevin Sheekey, an aide to Mr. Bloomberg at his company and in the administration, hopped in a cab and rushed to the Russian Federation Trade Ministry with a check to secure that party for Bloomberg L.P.

They have had their little jokes. Just last year, Mr. Bloomberg sent Mr. Carter a mock proclamation for a local law affecting "middle-aged men with long hair," stating that they ought to "cut their locks immediately." (Mr. Carter's coif is Baldwinesque: pick a brother.) "Regular inspections will be led by the Office of Emergency Management to begin at Da Silvano restaurant," the proclamation read.

And then the smoking ban came last spring.

Mr. Carter's resistance to the mayor's mandate has become so well known around Condé Nast that when the sprinkler system went off last year, the rumor mill immediately concluded that it was activated during another act of rebellion.

Mr. Carter denies it. "There was a fire in a fashion closet," he said. "I never set off the sprinkler system." He said that he does not smoke much in his office these days — "Not really."

However, Mr. Carter continues to light up in public spaces from time to time, as if he just wanted to vex the mayor. He once lit up not far from the mayor at the Four Seasons. But Mr. Carter said the opportunities were dwindling, as he chooses instead to entertain at home rather than be frustrated out and about town. (His specialty? Roast chicken.)

The tale of the power friendship torn asunder by smoldering sticks of Camels has been the talk of the downtown party circuit. "This is not up there with Britney's weekend wedding," said Michael Musto, one of the city's best known gossip columnists. "But the essence of good gossip is conflict between powerful people. This is something that is giving people a lot of entertaining party chitchat, because Graydon said what a lot of people in the party crowd are thinking."

Mr. Bloomberg maintains that most New Yorkers support the smoking ban, and said pointedly on his weekly radio show on Jan. 9 that there was only "one magazine editor who's apoplectic about this."

He added, "His own people turned him in because he was breaking the law."

Mr. Carter insisted that he thought Mr. Bloomberg was a good mayor, and that he would vote for him in a re-election.

"He's rich; I'm not. He doesn't smoke; I do. But we have common interests," Mr. Carter said. "He is an interesting guy — he is great enjoyable company — but we just disagree on this one issue. I would be very happy to see him in a room."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Ninjahedge]

Bottom line: The guy does not like being told what to do.

He could not give a rats arse about feeding pidgeons or anything of the like, but prohibit him from lighting up!!! God FORBID!!!!!

[Schadenfrau]

Settle down, Ninjahedge. Do you like being told what to do?

[Kris]

January 24, 2004

Dare to Smoke? The Guy Behind You Is the Mayor

By SABRINA TAVERNISE

It would have been a delicate question under any circumstance. But the surprise presence of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg turned it into a New York farce.

At a table in the plush, quiet bar of The Mark hotel on the Upper East Side, a woman asked fellow drinkers if they minded her lighting a cigarette. She leaned from a perch on an armchair toward well-dressed diners at four tables near her. In the dimly lighted room, where about seven small groups sat sipping wine and cocktails, most guests simply muttered that they were not opposed.

But Richard Medley, out for a drink with friends, spotted an important reason to say no. He had watched as Mr. Bloomberg entered the bar earlier. The city's antismoking champion had taken his seat behind the unsuspecting smoker.

"She turned to me and said, 'Do you mind if I smoke,' " Mr. Medley recalled. "I said, 'I don't mind, but he might,' " he said, loudly enough for the room to enjoy the joke, and he pointed to Mr. Bloomberg.

The woman, dressed in jeans and a sweater, swung around to face him, and began to laugh. She then asked him if he minded her smoking. Mr. Bloomberg, laughing, expanded the joke. It was the bar owners who would be offended, he said. They stood to pay a fine for her indulgence.

"It was a very New York thing," Mr. Medley said. "It was all in very good humor."

Mr. Bloomberg remained unfazed. He even offered the woman a lesson in how to quit. Some time later, in a charm offensive, he bought her table drinks. The guests laughed at the joke. But in a New York minute, the room went back to nursing their drinks. The woman, ultimately, was not won over.

"I don't think she was going to follow his advice," Mr. Medley said. "I think she just dropped the subject."

A spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg declined to comment on the incident.

Yesterday morning, Mr. Bloomberg gave a glimpse into the pressures of being the city's smoking conscience. On his radio show on WABC-AM, he was asked by a caller whether he would crack down on energy waste, like air-conditioners that blast in stores in the summer.

"I took on the smoking," he said. "I'm not sure I want to take on air-conditioning this year.''

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Ninjahedge]

Settle down, Ninjahedge. Do you like being told what to do?

Nope, but there is a line to be drawn. If someone was playing a boom box loud enough for you to hear it over whatever else you were listening or talking about, you would find that disturbing.

AAMOF, you would be asked to turn it off or leave. It is noise pollution.

No so long as it is not blasting, you will not suffer any asthmatic attacks, or any other lasting or "inconvient" adverse manefestations in direct relation to the music, but yet there is a law against it.

But somehow it is alright to do the same with smoking? Yo