he Bloomberg administration will ask the City Council to amend New York City's antismoking law to include all restaurants and bars, making it one of the toughest in the nation. Posted on 08/09/2002 1:47:28 AM PDT by sarcasm
he Bloomberg administration will ask the City Council to amend New York City's antismoking law to include all restaurants and bars, making it one of the toughest in the nation.
The current law, passed in 1995, forbids smoking in all restaurants with more than 35 seats, and excludes stand-alone bars and the bar areas of all restaurants. The proposed amendment would add roughly 13,000 establishments that would be forced to ban smoking entirely.
A state bill banning smoking in all restaurants passed the Assembly this year and had enough support to pass in the Senate. But under pressure from Gov. George E. Pataki, who insisted on exempting small restaurants, and a heavy lobbying campaign by restaurant groups and the tobacco and liquor industries, the Senate's Republican leaders never put the bill to a vote.
However, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg — who, along with his health commissioner, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, is persistently anti-tobacco — views bars and restaurants as workplaces before social establishments, and has said that employees within them should have the same option of a smoke-free environment as those who work in offices.
"The mayor will push this," one administration official said, "for all the same reasons he pushed the cigarette tax. He makes changes to things that he thinks are important."
Mr. Bloomberg gained approval from Albany this year to raise the taxes on cigarettes, making the cost of a pack about $7.50 in the city. The administration is expected to announce its plans to amend the antismoking law on Monday. Even cigar bars, if they serve alcohol, are likely to be included in the legislation.
In the last month, the mayor has quietly lined up support in the Council, where several members are likely to sponsor a bill at his request forcing all smoking New Yorkers to do their puffing outdoors. (Under the 1995 law, smoking was outlawed in public places like theaters and offices.)
Among those consulted was Councilman James S. Oddo from Staten Island, who came up with his own more modest bill this spring to expand the smoking laws to small restaurants. Hearings were never held on the bill.
"The health commissioner and the mayor make a very compelling argument for legislation that goes well beyond my bill," he said yesterday. "I am seriously considering sponsoring it."
Edward Skyler, a spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg, would not comment last night.
Timothy Filler, the associate director of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, said the amendment "would be hugely significant."
"New York is a bellwether and a city that many others look toward as a leader," he added. "If New York City were to do something that included restaurants and bars, it would be a great step forward in public health."
The city is bound to meet some resistance from both some restaurants and bars and those that represent them, although the New York State Restaurant Association recently reversed its longstanding opposition to the proposed state law after a survey showed that 76 percent of its 7,000 members favored the law.
"Our position has been that we have some of the strictest rules in the country, and we have learned to live with them, and we think they should be left alone," said E. Charles Hunt, the executive vice president of the restaurant association.
However, he added: "If a total ban is proposed in all public places, I think people are going to say nobody has an advantage over anyone else and would seriously consider whether or not that might work. The whole thing seems to be boiling down to an employee safety issue at this point."
Lawmakers in Nassau and Suffolk Counties are considering similar measures, officials there said.
If such a law were passed, New York City would join two states — California and Delaware — and scores of municipalities that ban smoking in just about every workplace, including bars and restaurants.
Three other states — Maine, Utah and Vermont — have statewide bans on smoking in all restaurants. Municipalities have been more aggressive in seeking tough and broad antismoking laws, largely because local legislatures are less vulnerable to the powerful tobacco industry lobby.
New York State law requires that a restaurant have a nonsmoking area that encompasses at least 70 percent of its seats, but the smoking area can be in the same room.
There are 72 municipalities in America that ban smoking in any restaurant or bar, according to Mr. Filler, and hundreds offer some other variation on a law against public smoking, allowing people to light up in stand-alone bars, or permitting smoking in restaurant bars that have separate ventilation systems.
In California, where the Legislature passed a law in 1994 that banned smoking in all workplaces, including bars and restaurants, many tavern and restaurant owners feared dire economic consequences. Some studies, including one by the state's sales tax collection agency in 1998, actually showed an increase in sales after the law was enacted.
"I don't believe a New Yorker would choose a steakhouse in Weehawken over Ruth's Chris in New York City because of a smoking regulation," Mr. Oddo said yesterday.
Mr. Bloomberg, who has a school of public health named after him, is aggressively antismoking. When he lobbied for his cigarette tax, he insisted that he did not care whether the city made or lost money, but rather that the tax would keep children from smoking. He has been known to chide reporters for their puffing, and has takes slaps at the tobacco industry in speeches.
He has found a kindred spirit in Dr. Frieden, the health commissioner, who said when he was appointed that his main priority would be to combat smoking. Dr. Frieden has even produced a radio advertisement deploring secondhand smoke.
What you don't get, thumb sucker, is that this issue is about property rights, period. It's not about health, or smelly clothes, or smoking, or imaginary "social rights".
No. It's about a man's right to buy a piece of land, build a restaurant, to create something (literally) from nothing, and then to have the corresponding right to run it as he sees fit.
And unfortunately for America, it's now become an issue of fighting unAmerican, NAZI-minded control freaks like you.
No No No! This will not do, because some restaurant owners and diners will undoubtedly choose contrary to the wishes of the great governmental nanny. We must not displease those among us who wish to run our lives for our own good.
Your a sad and pathetic RINO! All for you and nothing for us. Pretty good stance you take there, you nasty RINO!
Conservatives work for the good of ALL people. Not just pick and choose. Even our own President is against hurting small business's. Guess you are wearing a brown shirt and jack boots. Your kind make me ill.
That's already been done. Some judge has prohibited a mother from smoking in her home during the week, even though her son only visits on weekends!
Grania has it absolutely right!! Cuomo and Dinkens taxed New York City so much that visitors and conventioneerss went elsewhere. Tourism dropped and with it all associated revenue. It took Giuliani years to bring back New York City; it has only taken Bloomberg 8 months to drive visitors out of the city. Amazing what greed can do.
Exactly, metesky! We have three wonderful bar/restaurants in northern Maine where we spend our money and give good tips.
One just remodeled. They did a beautiful job. But get this: You know how most places put the smokers in a enclosed glass "house?" Well, THIS place has the NON SMOKERS in there. Now THEY get to look out at the people smoking, drinking, eating and having FUN! I laughed my a$$ off when I saw that!
Bloomberg is a DemocRAT in RINO'S Clothing!
"Where do you guys want to go for dinner?"
"I know this great place! Good food, great service, fun atmosphere, and a super-friendly staff."
"Doesn't that place allow smoking?"
"Oh yeah, I forgot. Rather than go to another restaurant, maybe we can get the mayor to ban smoking there!"
"Yeah! It's for their own good."
Well said, Eric! It should be the business owner's choice of making their business smoking or not. NOT the governments! Bloomberg puts me in mind of a man who wants CONTROL!
Actually, most decent restaurants and bars have huge smoker eaters installed today that pulls out the smoke AND any lingering stale smoke smell. So that's not really an issue either.
The places we go to have big smoke eaters, and people smoke, but the air is clear as glass.
You must be thinking of the old days, before the smoke eaters arrived.
I bet you PEE IN POOLS THOUGH!
AMEN to THAT!
You can choose to go to another restaurantThe choice properly belongs to the owner of the establishment. That's the point we're trying to make. Not with Big Brother, making these decisions on "behalf" of those who might not make the Proper ones.So your presumed right to smoke is greater than my right to breathe clean, healthy air? Don't think so.
If you like to smoke with your meals, you have a choice to stay at home.
-Eric
You don't like the smell of smoke, then YOU stay home! How's that!
The world doesn't rotate on your A$$!
"Hey guys, this place isn't as much fun as it used to be! I wonder why?"
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