Posted on 04/26/2003 4:37:07 PM PDT by MadIvan
In Vincent Autuori's spit and sawdust Brooklyn bar, the air is spring-fresh and the ashtrays have been removed. New beer mats advertise nicotine substitutes. Hank's Saloon has never previously provided such a healthy environment to its punters. But towards the end of what would once have been a lively midweek session, there are no customers to serve.
"Who does this mayor think we are - West Coast health nuts?" says Mr Autuori, who can be seen at regular intervals, smoking a lonely cigarette in the street outside his bar. "Let me tell you, my father died from lung cancer at the age of 58 and I was still giving him cigarettes in hospital on his deathbed. New Yorkers should be able to choose to go to hell their own way. This is about a city's rights."
A few miles away, in downtown Manhattan, the waitresses at McCann's restaurant pub have given up waiting for a lunchtime diner. "No one's coming to eat here from work," says the bartender, Luke Sullivan. "There's a deli downstairs. They get their sandwiches from there and eat them outside, where they can have a smoke as well. Waitresses pay their rent with tips. Now they're not getting any."
Across New York City, similar laments can be heard. On March 30, the city's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, an ex-smoker, followed the example of California and outlawed cigarettes in the city's bars, restaurants and hotel lobbies. As in other workplaces, employees who work where others socialise are now to be protected from the dangers of passive smoking.
In the words of Gifford Miller, the New York City Council Speaker: "It was decided that people should not have to choose between their health and their jobs."
At a stroke, thousands of seasoned bar-room habitués have become reluctant exiles from their favourite corner seat. New York smokers now have the option of a street huddle or a solitary evening spent at home. Smoking sections are still permitted in rare cases, but will be banned by New York State in July. The adjustment to pariah status, for some, is proving a little traumatic.
Familiar landmarks of New York social life are subtly altered. In the Algonquin hotel, where Dorothy Parker held court in the years after the First World War, artists, writers and bohemians have been coming to smoke, drink and talk for generations. But now the cloud of cigar smoke has gone. Ashtrays line the fringe of the lobby. "People know they can smoke outside the building," says the hotel's unapologetic director of sales and marketing, Christina Zeniou.
"Fine, but the smell and the feel of the place has changed," says one frequent visitor. "It's very odd."
Coan Nichols, a film-maker sitting at the Old Town Bar, says: "Now New York is, like, nerdy. When you're in a bar, it's going to be like California. All the action is outside."
In some venues, desperate measures have already been taken. Jerry's Restaurant in SoHo is plying its customers with free pieces of nicorette chewing gum. Telephone booths throughout the city are filled with adverts for anti-smoking patches, as Nicorette and other competitors seek to attract the attention of wandering smokers with no place to go.
In Delaware and California, the only other American states to enforce a total ban, a flurry of protests took place and quickly died down. But this is New York. Mayor Bloomberg has a fight on his hands.
An addiction has become a cause. For almost a month, smokers have sought to outwit the draconian paternalism of their mayor. For a while, impromptu street cafés sprang up, as drinks and cigarettes were taken outside, to be enjoyed in the spring sunshine.
The city council acted quickly to snuff out the rebellion. Fines for unlicensed drinking outdoors were raised from $25 to $150 and there is now the prospect of a jail sentence for repeat offenders.
Other recidivists have sought concessions on the grounds of long service on the paying side of the bar. Bitter arguments and the occasional fight have been reported, as regulars plead with owners to turn a blind eye. One bouncer at the Guernica bar in Manhattan's East Village was fatally stabbed during an argument with two customers who refused to leave cigarettes outside.
Rumours of "smokeasies" abound, and private smoking clubs are beginning to flourish. Meanwhile, a steady stream of evening traffic has found its way across the Hudson river to New Jersey, where Mr Bloomberg's restrictions do not apply.
During Prohibition, Hoboken, New Jersey, became notorious for the illegal breweries and speakeasies that supplied the New York "mob" with alcohol. Refugee smokers are now resurrecting the district's former glory days.
Frankie and Johnnie's Steakhouse, famous for an appearance in a scene of On the Waterfront, has already become a focal point for anti-Bloomberg protests over a whisky and a cigar. On the first day of the ban, a "Bye Bye Bloomberg" party sent the message across the river to the mayor's smoke-free offices.
In New York City, as Mr Bloomberg shows he means business, the crackdown is intensifying. A new corps of smoke inspectors has been hired. From Thursday they will be empowered to issue fines beginning at $250 to establishments choosing to ignore the rules.
Yet in the heart of Manhattan, ways and means are still being found to flout at least the spirit of the ban. At the Serafina Sandro restaurant, the chef, Sandro Fioriti, has resorted to cooking with tobacco.
Mr Fioriti is described by the restaurant's owner, Fabio Granato, as "an eccentric genius; a man who rolls his own cigars in the skin of green apples". He told The Telegraph: "As soon as I knew of Bloomberg's plans, I began to plot ways of thwarting him."
A special menu advertises homemade gnocchi with Empire English special blend tobacco, a filet mignon with Golden Virginia, and Tobacco Panna Cotta. A tobacco Grappa, designed to leave a lasting burning sensation in the middle of the throat, rounds the meal off. Mr Fioriti's kitchen is covered in tobacco dust.
"A lot of people are frustrated with the idea that Mr Bloomberg is ruining their nights out," said Mr Fioriti. "This was a way to allow them to express that frustration and it's proved so popular we're going to keep it on. And tobacco dishes leave a very interesting aftertaste. It gives the food a kick."
Harrie Lowe, an investment banker, has tried the tobacco gnocchi, but not as an act of defiance. "I approve of this ban," she says. "Why should people have their food ruined by a heavy pall of smoke that gets into everything, including clothes? I was in a restaurant recently where two women simply refused to stop lighting up, even though every other table in the restaurant had made a complaint. That is just rude behaviour."
Back at Hank's Saloon, Mr Autuori despairs. "This is not a polite town. We have hard drinkers and hard smokers here. Bloomberg might think it's a good idea to give up smoking, but you take away the soul of this place if you start ordering people to think and act the same as you."
The real argument, though, for many traders, is about New York's economy rather than its soul. In the past two years, the city has shed 223,000 jobs. Unemployment stands at a five-year high of 8.6 per cent. Earnings on Wall Street have crashed by almost one-third, and the war in Iraq has led to a further slump in numbers at restaurants, bars and cinemas.
"Why now?" says Mr Sullivan as he chews a piece of gum to ease his cigarette craving. "Maybe it is a good idea to have a no-smoking ban, although as a smoker I don't think so. But the way Bloomberg, comfortably a billionaire himself through his eponymous financial information service, has timed it is a disaster, another kick in the teeth for this city's earnings. People won't come in the same numbers. Takings are down and jobs will be lost. Do we really want that now?"
Deaf to the complaints from Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx, Mr Bloomberg is confident that by the summer, the controversy will be forgotten. "A few years ago," said the mayor, "you could smoke in movie theatres, you could smoke in Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium, and you could smoke in Madison Square Garden. We stopped that. After a week, the stories went away and so did the smoking. In the end, people will look back and say, 'You mean they did allow smoking back then? How archaic.' "
Mayor Michael Bloomberg stands dressed in armor on stage during his 'Mayor of La Mancha' skit at the annual Inner Circle charity dinner in New York, Saturday, April 12, 2003. To the tune of 'The Impossible Dream,' Bloomberg sang that his own dreams were to 'run the unrunnable schools,' 'rule the unrulable city,' and 'raise the unraiseable tax.'
An appropriate graphic, as the L train goes to Canarsie, which some believe to be the closest thing to hell on earth (or at least Purgatory). Who would ever buy in what was once the sewage dump of the city is beyond me.
Take the bet!!!!
New York is the highest taxed in everything.
The New State Budget last year was $90 Billion dollars compare that to California's (Which has ~15 Million more people) 74 Billion and Texas' (About the same size) 67 Billion.
And that's only the tip of the Iceberg because good ole' Republican Pataki has a way of passing unfunded Mandates onto the counties and likes to borrow tons of $$$ just to have a balanced budget.
Say what you will about Grey Davis's budget but a least facing a crisis he is actually making cuts while in New York even though we are $10 Billion in the red Pataki is still going to increase spending this year by $2 Billion.
Californians are trying to recall Davis, HA!!! As a New Yorker I would gladly switch governors.
Why Now??????
What it is only OK to take away freedoms in good economic times???
If reincarnation is real than I know exactly what historical figure one term Mikey was in a past life.
Does anyone know what the fine is in New York for being caught smoking marijuana in public? I'm curious if it's less than the drinking/smoking fines.
Apparently the punishment is to be elected Mayor. :)
Regards, Ivan
If you must know what it depicts I'll tell you but it has nothing to do with smoking.
I can't believe this. Why are people so apathetic? Is it because we (smokers) are in the minority?
Or is it because the ELECTED officials (Bloomberg) have become the gestapo?
Now, it's an average line.
LOL.
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