CIG BAN LEAVES LOT OF 'EMPTIES'

New York Post ^ | May 12, 2003 | JEANE MacINTOSH

[sarcasm]

May 12, 2003 -- Business at New York bars and restaurants has plummeted by as much as 50 percent in the wake of the smoking ban - and the drop has already sparked layoffs and left some establishments on the brink of shutting their doors, a Post survey has found.

[sarcasm]

1870 BAR MAY GET $NUFFED OUT

May 12, 2003 -- The smoking ban could be the death of Manhattan's oldest family-run restaurant.

"It very well might be the last nail in our coffin," said Joan Condron Borkowski, owner of Billy's, the venerable Sutton Place chop house started by her great-grandfather, Michael Condron, in 1870.

The fourth-generation restaurateur has been struggling to keep the eatery afloat since 2000, hampered by the stock-market crash and 9/11 attacks. And the ban, she said, has sent business further down the spiral.

"This is it. I just don't think we can stand much more - people think I'm just whistling Dixie or crying wolf, but I'm not. We are in dire straits, and this ban has put us firmly there," she said.

Since the ban, Borkowski said, dinners at Billy's are off as much as 50 percent, with fewer smokers - or groups of smokers and nonsmokers - coming in to eat.

"I do about 100 dinners a night, where I had been doing 140 to 165," she said. At the bar, bartender Gerry Michael said liquor sales have plunged as much as 40 percent.

On a recent Thursday, four patrons sat at the once-full bar. "In the first week, my income dropped 48 percent," said Michael, 52, a career bartender. "For the past five or so weeks, it has been down about 38 percent."

Tips are down as well, and Borkowski fears having to lay off staffers who've been part of the "family" for "20, 30, 40 years." Most of the staff is between 35 and 65 years old; many had expected to finish up their service careers at Billy's.

"I'm really concerned - we're all really concerned - because we just don't see how the business will come back," said Michael.

Borkowski said people should be given a choice - "let the business owners decide whether they want a smoking or nonsmoking establishment, and then let the customers chose where they want to eat," she said.

"Just like they chose a place based on the food, the ambiance or the price."

At Billy's bar, the regulars - almost all of them nonsmokers - blasted the law they feel is threatening the neighborhood joint they've been frequenting for decades.

"Mayor Mike claimed he'll save 1,000 restaurant staff lives a year with this ban," said Lisa Barlerin, a lifelong New Yorker.

"Well, I'd say to him, 'Take a look at what this is doing to the livelihoods of those workers.' Poverty kills a lot more people than secondhand smoke."

[BluH2o]

"Mayor Mike claimed he'll save 1,000 restaurant staff lives a year with this ban," said Lisa Barlerin, a lifelong New Yorker.

Another profoundly ridiculous move on the part of a "well intentioned" poltical critter.

[NetValue]

Check for a drop in convention business too.

[tomakaze]

the effects of this ban were so blatant, so predictable that it had to be intentional.
What a scumbag.

[thoughtomator]

I used to go out to a bar with friends about once a week, but we haven't gone once since the smoking ban, since a good number of us do smoke. Not only has the devastation to the bar economy been predictable, but so is the backlash that will cause the ban to be repealed.

Bottom line - people who think they know what's best for other people and use the force of law to impose it suck.

[Caipirabob]

It this ban another piece of the Hillary Puzzle? Two states: New York and California - Firmly Demoratic in the past two elections. Their DNC operatives move to absolutely destrroy the two states financially. Lives, business and infrastructure are completely devasted.

Now before the 2004 election, these states turn to GWB for a bailout. "Help Us, George! Give us Federal money directed towards other states and tax cuts so that we can subsidize our populations with gubmint cheese!"

GW takes a good long look and says, "This is what you did to get there, and this is what you need to do to fix it."

As with Gerald (Brain Dead) Ford, the New York Times comes out with the headlines "Bush to New York and CA: DROP DEAD!"

The liberals have their instant campaign issue. Hillary "promises" to save them and is off to the races...

[metesky]

"The administration has stuck a knife in the back of the only industry that is holding this city up," noted Bill O'Donnell of the Village's Corner Bistro. "This was a vibrant industry that generated a lot of money for the city, and they went and killed it."

Attack of the Moralizing Doofus.

[thoughtomator]

Interesting theory but I doubt it. New York has been in the D column for decades.

I would point out to you that the single biggest financial problem in New York is that little incident known as 9/11... hundreds of billions in financial damage and still counting.

[Freedom4US]

Ya, I don't go out anymore, for a few reasons actually, but "smoke free" is a big part of it. Why bother ... So-called "liberals" have strangled commerce in this country so far it is absolutely amazing - taxes, regulations, permits, inspections and detections and rejections, lousy service, high prices, and now this. I can't imagine the old corner bars will be around much longer, if they aren't already extinct. Dram shop laws, licenses and NO SMOKING. Next, it will be NO ALCOHOL. You can bet the trial lawyers, flush with 50 billion in shakedown tobacco money are lustfully eyeing the alcohol industry.

Europe was pretty cool that way. I used to frequent a local place for breakfast so I could linger and enjoy coffee and a cigarette and read the paper without being a criminal. To be fair, all this nonsense in the US is well and necessary, once one realizes there is always an equal and opposite reaction when the pendulum swings the other way.

[Claire Voyant]

NEVER Forget that Bloomberg is really a Democrat.

[Kip Lange]

Check for a drop in convention business too.

Another good group for smokers to target if they want to shake up and scare a few politicians.

[Kip Lange]

NEVER Forget that Bloomberg is really a Democrat.

He's worse. A RINO/"wet" 'Pub. Worst of the lot.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Just so you know...

[thoughtomator]

I'm just boggled by the fact that this country seems to have learned absolutely nothing from Prohibition.

[Elsie]

"If it weren't for private parties, I'd shut down," said owner Danny Mills.

---

BULL!

These "smokers" are eating SOMEWHERE, I guarantee it!!!!!

[Elsie]

I'm just boggled by the fact that this country seems to have learned absolutely nothing from Prohibition. PERIOD!!!

[Labyrinthos]

NEVER Forget that Bloomberg is really a Democrat.

Sure you can blame Bloomberg. But even if the City Council repeals the ban tomorrow, a state-wide ban goes into effect on July 1st thanks to RINO Patacki and the republicazi controlled state senate.

[Budge]

Right out of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged"

Unfortunately, there is no John Galt for us.

[boop]

Save 1000 people a year with the ban? BS! This ban will not save ONE life.