New York City: Restaurateurs: 'This Is Really Bad Timing'

newsday.com ^ | Tania Padgett

[wingnuts'nbolts]

This is like prohibition. It won't work. People will buy their smokes on line or buy tobacco from a tobacco shop and roll their own. Either way taxes from cigarettes will fall way off. These taxes were, if I got it right, to be used for the children.

People who used to patronize restaurants where there were smoking sections still will, but fewer and less often.

Someone will come up with a way around this. Like Speakeaseys. It really is an unenforceable law. Government has no right regulating liquor, cigaretts or what goes on in your home (unless people are being hurt).

I am a smoker and I don't like smoke filled rooms at restaurants or nightclubs, but I know the government overreaches itself. I am so sick and tired of the PC nonsense going on in this country I could shriek. Not that it would help. All I can do is be non PC. Merry Christmas! Hey, got a light?

[Great Dane]

It's a little Christmas gift I allowed myself. I'm sure I'll be OK again by Thursday. ;^)

I am sure you will be o'kay, have a very merry Christmas, and that goes for everyone, including Minnie,Cinnie and Finnie. :-}}}}}}.

[Jorge]

With all due respect, Mayor Bloomberg is turning out to be a major bozo.
I quit smoking several years ago, but still can't stand these anti-smoking nazis.

[SheLion]

With all due respect, Mayor Bloomberg is turning out to be a major bozo. I quit smoking several years ago, but still can't stand these anti-smoking nazis.

More On Bloomberg

[SheLion]

"When your too spineless to cut spending, stick it to the smokers and tell them it's for their own good!

[CurlyDave]

I am so tired of hearing about this proposed smoking ban. It seems to me that the owner of a business, be it a restaurant or a bar, should have the right to decide what goes on at his business. If you don't smoke, don't go to a place that allows smoking. If you don't smoke, don't work at a place that allows smoking.

I have been a non-smoker for 40 years. The falacy in your supposed argument for "freedom of choice" is that until about 10 years ago I had no freedom of choice.

Please name 4 or 5 first-class restaurants in NYC or anywhere else which were non-smoking in 1980 or even 1985. What percentage of the total were they?

That's right, you can't.

Until the recent bans on smoking in public places there were no non-smoking establishments.

I vividly being remember being sickened and nasuseated on airplane flights back when smoking was allowed. Where were the non-smoking flights before the government forced them?

[laredo44]

I have been a non-smoker for 40 years. The falacy in your supposed argument for "freedom of choice" is that until about 10 years ago I had no freedom of choice.

Please name 4 or 5 first-class restaurants in NYC or anywhere else which were non-smoking in 1980 or even 1985. What percentage of the total were they?

I really don't understand your definition of freedom of choice. None of us are entitled to any restaurants. Period. It is only when someone decides to create a restaurant that we have one. And at that point, none are entitled admission should the owner desire you excluded. If you own a seafood restaurant and I'm allergic to shellfish, the choice I have is whether or not to enter your establishment, not what you can serve while I'm there.

Would you believe, to this day, I can't find an auto dealership selling S class Mercedes Benzs for $5.00? Talk about no choice! What's up with that? Or more to the point, what's up with you?

Where were the non-smoking flights before the government forced them?

I don't know the year, but I'm sure Delta made all its flights non-smoking before regulations forced them to.

[SheLion]

I vividly being remember being sickened and nasuseated on airplane flights back when smoking was allowed. Where were the non-smoking flights before the government forced them?

Ahhhhhh......Poor baby.........

Another ONE who wants the government to rule our lives!

What's wrong with letting the business owner decide what he wants to do with his business? If you were sooooooo upset with the conditions, why didn't you approach the owner of the haunt that you hung out in? Why did you sit on your hands an wait for the THE REPUBLIK OF GOVERNMENT to lay down and force rules?!

And in this day and age, there are a LOT of places where you can go and not be bothered by second hand smoke! And btw, why did you hang out in dives that didn't have huge smoke eaters? All the classy places that allow smoking have invested in huge expensive smoker eaters. Huh??

[SheLion]

Please name 4 or 5 first-class restaurants in NYC or anywhere else which were non-smoking in 1980 or even 1985. What percentage of the total were they?

PS: Back in the 80's, most everyone smoked, everywhere. No one had any problem with it. It was just a way of life. Your just now deciding that it bothered you back then??? Then why they hell did you hang out at places where there was smokers. And why did you hang out with your friends that smoked??? Your way off the mark here, buddy.

[SheLion]

Then why they hell did you hang out at places where there was smokers.

Couldn't have bothered you TO much! heh!

[metesky]

I don't know about NYC, Dave, but on Cape Cod there were a couple of successful non-smoking restaurants back in the early eighties, long before government coercion became the norm.

There were a couple of places that cut their own throats by going non-smoking also.

Michael's Black Rose on Rt. 6A at the Sandwich/Barnstable line is one that springs to mind, but I think their demise had as much to do with implementing a three-drink limit at the bar at the same time they went non-smoking.

No butts/no booze = closed doors in nine short months. Too bad.

[Madame Dufarge]

The falacy in your supposed argument for "freedom of choice" is that until about 10 years ago I had no freedom of choice.

So then you support the principle of freedom of choice? The nature of your complaint seems to be that freedom of choice is a good thing, you just felt that you didn't have it, correct?