Smoking in Public Places - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

Janice · 04-29-2003, 12:54 AM

I found this article interesting.

NYC's smoky night life moves to the sidewalks

Response to ban may carry lessons for Boston

By Tatsha Robertson, The Boston Globe

NEW YORK - The night life for which this city is so famous is undergoing a metamorphosis as bar patrons who smoke are spending time on the sidewalks rather than spending money inside ever since a citywide workplace smoking ban took effect on March 30.

''It's creating a social scene in the streets. The streets are becoming the new bar,'' said David Rabin, co-owner of Lotus, a supper club in the Meatpacking district. ''That's not good for the neighbors trying to sleep, and it's terrible for business.''

With New York ready to impose an even tougher statewide ban on public indoor smoking in July and Boston implementing a similar one next week, smokers on the sidewalks of Manhattan have a lot to say about a law many are calling Draconian.

Beginning next Monday, it will be illegal to smoke in Boston workplaces, including most of the city's bars, nightclubs, and restaurants. Smoking will be permitted outdoors and in businesses that generate more than 60 percent of their sales from tobacco.

''It's terrible. It's anti-American,'' said Frank Wynne, 35, as he stamped away the evening's chill in front of a bar in Midtown while taking long, deep drags of his cigarette.

''It creates a subculture outside,'' said 28-year-old Jeff Farley, who stood nearby lighting up with a group of co-workers.

All over the city, smokers, bartenders, business owners, and nonsmokers alike say socializing in New York has been challenging since the law banned smoking in nearly all public indoor places, including bowling alleys and bars.

''I am concerned about noise,'' Bronx resident Mary Alm, 33, said yesterday morning as she sat in a Manhattan coffeehouse. ''But it's great. I don't want to breathe in other people's smoke.''

''It's been frustrating. You have all these people on the sidewalks, and you don't know if people are coming back or will stiff you,'' said Jason Smith, a bartender at McCoy's bar in Hell's Kitchen. ''It's a problem with the people in the building, with people walking down the street dodging these clumps of people. Even I would rather sit on my fire escape and drink a beer.''

Business owners say that so many patrons are leaving early - or not visiting at all - that business is down 20 percent.

Rabin, who is also president of the New York Nightlife Association, a tavern and restaurant lobbying group, said it is too early to know the full economic impact of the law since city officials said they will not fine establishments until May. Still, he said, there has been a rise in noise complaints, and he predicts more rowdiness in the streets.

But already the ban has created tension between bar workers and patrons, tensions that reached a peak on April 12 when a bouncer at an East Village club was stabbed to death by a man who was angry after being told to put out his cigarette. And Jim Dugan, a 31-year-old patron in McCoy's and Boston native, said he's watched patrons take their alcoholic drinks outside with them.

A number of politicians running for mayor in 2005 have already spoken against the law and angry business owners are planning to strike back at the state. Starting on May 15, many are planning to shut down their Quick Draw lottery game for a week to protest the ban; also, patrons and bar owners alike are passing out petitions over martinis and merlots that ask for separate smoking areas.

''We are not playing games with the state. They have taken our rights one after another, but we are going to go out of business with this one,'' said Brenda Perks, owner of Mel's Place in Falconer, N.Y., near Buffalo. She is a founder of Operation New York Freedom, which seeks to have the ban changed.

The new law, which was swiftly passed by the Legislature, received international attention because of the bouncer's death and because it goes against the city's image as a hot bar town as portrayed on shows such as HBO's ''Sex and the City.'' But other states like Illinois, Indiana, and Maryland, all of which are considering similar laws, are paying close attention to New York. California and Delaware have already implemented strict statewide smoking bans.

Boston officials said they are also measuring the reaction of New Yorkers and will continue communications with New York health and city leaders after Boston's law goes into effect.

''We have communicated with each other during public hearings and tried to learn from each other's experiences,'' said John Auerbach, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission.

The commission sent a staff member to New York establishments to study how businesses were dealing with the law.

''What we found is that it's going incredibly smooth for the size of the city and scope of the regulation,'' said Auerbach.

Unlike the Boston law, the New York City ban allows businesses to offer separate ventilated smoking rooms until 2006 and allows smoking in bars that are family owned, but the state law in July eliminates all those exemptions, angering some bar owners who spent thousands of dollars to build smoking rooms.

In the Oak bar, a swank cigar bar in the Plaza Hotel, the smell of cigars and cigarettes wafts through the dark-paneled room. Packed in the bar is a mix of young and older clients, many of whom the regulars like Oscar Casas, 50, haven't seen before. The bar is one of the few businesses in the city exempted from the ban for six months until it can apply for a permanent exemption because it is a cigar bar.

''Since the smoking ban, we are seeing a 15 percent increase in the level of business,'' said Gary Schweikert, managing director of the Plaza. ''We still see the same regulars of the Oak bar ... but we are also seeing new faces, and our servers are telling us that people are saying they are coming because they can relax and have a cigar.''

State and city officials from New York, where 23 percent of the adult population smokes (compared with 18 percent in Boston), contend that the bans are to prevent workers from breathing secondhand smoke.

Many bar and restaurant owners, as well as patrons who light up, agree that the public shouldn't have to breathe cigarette smoke, but they also said patrons and employees should have a choice of whether to work or visit a bar that allows smoking.

''We are not radical people, just business owners who feel we shouldn't have someone walk into our businesses and say you can't do that,'' said Joe Pintagro, a restaurant owner near Buffalo. ''It's not a smoking issue. This is a freedom of the right to run our business within the law.''

Charles Johnson, a 48-year-old audio-visual technician in Manhattan, said he hasn't visited a bar since the law went into effect.

''I think it stinks,'' he said walking along the Central Park West area puffing a cigarette. ''I understand everybody's right not to have smoke in their face, but this is bordering on fascism and it impinges on your social life quite a bit.''

Just as many nonsmokers seem to agree, but there are also smokers like 29-year-old Arsalan Ali who disagrees. Standing outside the Son Cubano, a restaurant and bar in the Meatpacking district, Ali said the new law will be good for the city and for his lungs.

''I'm glad they did it now so people will have time to adjust. Some people will quit. Others will get used to it. It's helped me cut back,'' he said taking his last puff before joining his nonsmoking friends inside the establishment.

This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 4/28/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

Chocoholic · 04-29-2003, 01:06 AM

I wouldn't mind seeing smoking banned from all public places, inside and out. It's a nasty, disgusting habit!

*PinkLady* · 04-29-2003, 01:11 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Snoopy
I wouldn't mind seeing smoking banned from all public places, inside and out. It's a nasty, disgusting habit!

Ditto.

AKA · 04-29-2003, 01:13 PM

I agree. You still get second-hand smoke when you're outside. Call me a pinko commie bastard (just don't call me late for dinner), but I think the only place smoking should be allowed is on private property.

Crimson and Clover · 04-29-2003, 01:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Snoopy
I wouldn't mind seeing smoking banned from all public places, inside and out. It's a nasty, disgusting habit!

that would be nice

Moonlight Lady · 04-29-2003, 01:39 PM

It sure would, I go outside to breathe fresh air, not second hand smoke.

Mijada · 04-29-2003, 02:01 PM

SMOKING SUCKS!

Kay Scarpetta · 04-29-2003, 04:41 PM

I hate smoking. I was walking around in Boston the other night and some idiot was smoking right next to me. I started hacking.

F*O*L 1988 · 04-29-2003, 04:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Snoopy
I wouldn't mind seeing smoking banned from all public places, inside and out. It's a nasty, disgusting habit!

Yup.

Jem · 04-30-2003, 06:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by AKA
I agree. You still get second-hand smoke when you're outside. Call me a pinko commie bastard (just don't call me late for dinner), but I think the only place smoking should be allowed is on private property.

Ditto. If people want to smoke, they should smoke at home. An idea that my aunt had a few years ago was to have these glass domes that the smokers could have over them and the non-smokers could watch as the smoker disappears behind the glass. If people want to smoke they should breathe in their own smoke and not bring any harm to anyone else.

ABlairican Pie · 05-01-2003, 08:05 AM

You've probably have ads like we do over here, where they say that cigarette smoke contains a variety of poisons:

ammonia (as what's in household cleaner)
formaldehyde (as in embalming fluid)
methanol (as what's in rocket fuel)
hydrocyanide (as what's in gas chambers)
carbon monoxide (as what's in car exhaust)
arsenic (as what's in rat poison)

Funny, as much as I hate smoking, I was thinking, well, gee, why not have it at bars and clubs where bands are playing, then I remember when I went to Graceland in Seattle last year when my cousin's band was playing, I was so short of breath from all that smoking going on there, I wondered, boy, if I were in a band, playing from place to place, is this what I'd have to deal with each night...So banning it isn't a bad idea at all.

You could also be like Eddie Van Halen and develop oral cancer and have 1/3 or your tongue removed.

Funny how he continued to smoke AFTER that...or John Mellancamp, who continues to smoke after having a heart attack...

Nanny Fine · 05-01-2003, 09:00 AM

I hate hate hate smoking. I have a coworker that smokes and if I have to ever ride with her for anything I'd climb a wall to get out of it becuase she smokes in the car and that is so confining and disgusting. I have asthma and even that doesn't stop her from smoking in the car. I hate to be in a restaurant, even the "non smoking" section because you can STILL tell, see, smell it. A lot of restaurants in my area are non smoking entirely - which is great.

I'm all for a ban of public smoking. You wanna smoke? Smoke at home.

Redhead03 · 05-01-2003, 10:12 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Janice
I found this article interesting.

you would

cablejockey · 05-01-2003, 12:34 PM

Sure, smoking is an unhealthy, annoying bad habit--but it is still a practice that is legal. Tobacco is a legal substance and people who indulge, should have the right to smoke. OR the government could ban tobacco, and pay to help every smoker kick the habit.
A lot of trouble could have been avoided if the law stated that a bar or restaurant could be for smokers or not, then the 2 groups wouldnt have to mix.
When it comes down to it, the taxes the state and federal governments receive on sales of cigarettes is such a huge amount of money, they dont want to give it up.

Nanny Fine · 05-01-2003, 12:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by cablejockey
Sure, smoking is an unhealthy, annoying bad habit--but it is still a practice that is legal. Tobacco is a legal substance and people who indulge, should have the right to smoke. OR the government could ban tobacco, and pay to help every smoker kick the habit.
A lot of trouble could have been avoided if the law stated that a bar or restaurant could be for smokers or not, then the 2 groups wouldnt have to mix.
When it comes down to it, the taxes the state and federal governments receive on sales of cigarettes is such a huge amount of money, they dont want to give it up.

But just because someone feels it's okay to inhale cancer into their lungs doesn't mean they have the right to do it to me. If I'm sitting in the same car, the same restaurant, the same home I might as well be smoking myself.

It might be legal but a business has every right to ban smoking from their grounds. Many have already done it and I hope that more follow.

04-29-2003, 12:54 AM	#1
Janice Retired Admin - Hollywood Swingin' Forum Legend Join Date: Aug 03, 2001 Location: Beantown Posts: 36,388	Smoking in Public Places I found this article interesting. NYC's smoky night life moves to the sidewalks Response to ban may carry lessons for Boston By Tatsha Robertson, The Boston Globe NEW YORK - The night life for which this city is so famous is undergoing a metamorphosis as bar patrons who smoke are spending time on the sidewalks rather than spending money inside ever since a citywide workplace smoking ban took effect on March 30. ''It's creating a social scene in the streets. The streets are becoming the new bar,'' said David Rabin, co-owner of Lotus, a supper club in the Meatpacking district. ''That's not good for the neighbors trying to sleep, and it's terrible for business.'' With New York ready to impose an even tougher statewide ban on public indoor smoking in July and Boston implementing a similar one next week, smokers on the sidewalks of Manhattan have a lot to say about a law many are calling Draconian. Beginning next Monday, it will be illegal to smoke in Boston workplaces, including most of the city's bars, nightclubs, and restaurants. Smoking will be permitted outdoors and in businesses that generate more than 60 percent of their sales from tobacco. ''It's terrible. It's anti-American,'' said Frank Wynne, 35, as he stamped away the evening's chill in front of a bar in Midtown while taking long, deep drags of his cigarette. ''It creates a subculture outside,'' said 28-year-old Jeff Farley, who stood nearby lighting up with a group of co-workers. All over the city, smokers, bartenders, business owners, and nonsmokers alike say socializing in New York has been challenging since the law banned smoking in nearly all public indoor places, including bowling alleys and bars. ''I am concerned about noise,'' Bronx resident Mary Alm, 33, said yesterday morning as she sat in a Manhattan coffeehouse. ''But it's great. I don't want to breathe in other people's smoke.'' ''It's been frustrating. You have all these people on the sidewalks, and you don't know if people are coming back or will stiff you,'' said Jason Smith, a bartender at McCoy's bar in Hell's Kitchen. ''It's a problem with the people in the building, with people walking down the street dodging these clumps of people. Even I would rather sit on my fire escape and drink a beer.'' Business owners say that so many patrons are leaving early - or not visiting at all - that business is down 20 percent. Rabin, who is also president of the New York Nightlife Association, a tavern and restaurant lobbying group, said it is too early to know the full economic impact of the law since city officials said they will not fine establishments until May. Still, he said, there has been a rise in noise complaints, and he predicts more rowdiness in the streets. But already the ban has created tension between bar workers and patrons, tensions that reached a peak on April 12 when a bouncer at an East Village club was stabbed to death by a man who was angry after being told to put out his cigarette. And Jim Dugan, a 31-year-old patron in McCoy's and Boston native, said he's watched patrons take their alcoholic drinks outside with them. A number of politicians running for mayor in 2005 have already spoken against the law and angry business owners are planning to strike back at the state. Starting on May 15, many are planning to shut down their Quick Draw lottery game for a week to protest the ban; also, patrons and bar owners alike are passing out petitions over martinis and merlots that ask for separate smoking areas. ''We are not playing games with the state. They have taken our rights one after another, but we are going to go out of business with this one,'' said Brenda Perks, owner of Mel's Place in Falconer, N.Y., near Buffalo. She is a founder of Operation New York Freedom, which seeks to have the ban changed. The new law, which was swiftly passed by the Legislature, received international attention because of the bouncer's death and because it goes against the city's image as a hot bar town as portrayed on shows such as HBO's ''Sex and the City.'' But other states like Illinois, Indiana, and Maryland, all of which are considering similar laws, are paying close attention to New York. California and Delaware have already implemented strict statewide smoking bans. Boston officials said they are also measuring the reaction of New Yorkers and will continue communications with New York health and city leaders after Boston's law goes into effect. ''We have communicated with each other during public hearings and tried to learn from each other's experiences,'' said John Auerbach, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission. The commission sent a staff member to New York establishments to study how businesses were dealing with the law. ''What we found is that it's going incredibly smooth for the size of the city and scope of the regulation,'' said Auerbach. Unlike the Boston law, the New York City ban allows businesses to offer separate ventilated smoking rooms until 2006 and allows smoking in bars that are family owned, but the state law in July eliminates all those exemptions, angering some bar owners who spent thousands of dollars to build smoking rooms. In the Oak bar, a swank cigar bar in the Plaza Hotel, the smell of cigars and cigarettes wafts through the dark-paneled room. Packed in the bar is a mix of young and older clients, many of whom the regulars like Oscar Casas, 50, haven't seen before. The bar is one of the few businesses in the city exempted from the ban for six months until it can apply for a permanent exemption because it is a cigar bar. ''Since the smoking ban, we are seeing a 15 percent increase in the level of business,'' said Gary Schweikert, managing director of the Plaza. ''We still see the same regulars of the Oak bar ... but we are also seeing new faces, and our servers are telling us that people are saying they are coming because they can relax and have a cigar.'' State and city officials from New York, where 23 percent of the adult population smokes (compared with 18 percent in Boston), contend that the bans are to prevent workers from breathing secondhand smoke. Many bar and restaurant owners, as well as patrons who light up, agree that the public shouldn't have to breathe cigarette smoke, but they also said patrons and employees should have a choice of whether to work or visit a bar that allows smoking. ''We are not radical people, just business owners who feel we shouldn't have someone walk into our businesses and say you can't do that,'' said Joe Pintagro, a restaurant owner near Buffalo. ''It's not a smoking issue. This is a freedom of the right to run our business within the law.'' Charles Johnson, a 48-year-old audio-visual technician in Manhattan, said he hasn't visited a bar since the law went into effect. ''I think it stinks,'' he said walking along the Central Park West area puffing a cigarette. ''I understand everybody's right not to have smoke in their face, but this is bordering on fascism and it impinges on your social life quite a bit.'' Just as many nonsmokers seem to agree, but there are also smokers like 29-year-old Arsalan Ali who disagrees. Standing outside the Son Cubano, a restaurant and bar in the Meatpacking district, Ali said the new law will be good for the city and for his lungs. ''I'm glad they did it now so people will have time to adjust. Some people will quit. Others will get used to it. It's helped me cut back,'' he said taking his last puff before joining his nonsmoking friends inside the establishment. This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 4/28/2003. © Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

04-29-2003, 01:39 PM	#6
Moonlight Lady Member Forum Star Join Date: Aug 18, 2002 Posts: 16,052	It sure would, I go outside to breathe fresh air, not second hand smoke.
	__________________ [

04-29-2003, 04:41 PM	#8
Kay Scarpetta Defy Gravity 8.26.05 Forum Superstar Join Date: Jul 04, 2001 Location: La Vie Boheme Posts: 28,013	I hate smoking. I was walking around in Boston the other night and some idiot was smoking right next to me. I started hacking.
	__________________ The people who think they know everything about Broadway make me laugh. They've never seen a Broadway play in their life. "oh mi godddd RENT's a mooovie! lyke 525600 minuuuuuuutes!" No. To be a Broadway Freak, you must live, eat, sleep, study, devout, think, obsess, dream, believe Broadway. You must know original & revival casts, soundtracks, performance runs, dates, theatres, numbers, how many Tony Awards A Chorus Line won. You must be Broadway. That's right bitches. I AM Broadway.

05-01-2003, 08:05 AM	#11
ABlairican Pie Member Forum Superstar Join Date: Dec 12, 2001 Location: Living where cats reign more Supreme than a pizza. Posts: 31,619	re: smoking You've probably have ads like we do over here, where they say that cigarette smoke contains a variety of poisons: ammonia (as what's in household cleaner) formaldehyde (as in embalming fluid) methanol (as what's in rocket fuel) hydrocyanide (as what's in gas chambers) carbon monoxide (as what's in car exhaust) arsenic (as what's in rat poison) Funny, as much as I hate smoking, I was thinking, well, gee, why not have it at bars and clubs where bands are playing, then I remember when I went to Graceland in Seattle last year when my cousin's band was playing, I was so short of breath from all that smoking going on there, I wondered, boy, if I were in a band, playing from place to place, is this what I'd have to deal with each night...So banning it isn't a bad idea at all. You could also be like Eddie Van Halen and develop oral cancer and have 1/3 or your tongue removed. Funny how he continued to smoke AFTER that...or John Mellancamp, who continues to smoke after having a heart attack...
	__________________ Release the kitties. --Nathan Explosion

05-01-2003, 09:00 AM	#12
Nanny Fine Justine and Holden.. Senior Member Join Date: Jan 01, 2003 Location: Watching The Ellen Degeneres Show and luvin' it Posts: 2,852	I hate hate hate smoking. I have a coworker that smokes and if I have to ever ride with her for anything I'd climb a wall to get out of it becuase she smokes in the car and that is so confining and disgusting. I have asthma and even that doesn't stop her from smoking in the car. I hate to be in a restaurant, even the "non smoking" section because you can STILL tell, see, smell it. A lot of restaurants in my area are non smoking entirely - which is great. I'm all for a ban of public smoking. You wanna smoke? Smoke at home.
	__________________ * How it all came down to this, only the Devil knows. Retail Rodeo is at the corner on my left. The motel is down the road to my right. I close my eyes and try to peer into the future. On my left, I saw days upon days of lipstick and ticking clocks, dirty looks and quiet whisperings. And burning secrets that just won't ever die away. And on my right, what could I picture? The blue sky, the desert earth, stretching out into the eerie infinity. A beautiful never-ending nothing. ~Justine, "The Good Girl" * Bush for President!

04-29-2003, 01:06 AM	#2
Chocoholic Member Forum Star Join Date: Dec 01, 2000 Location: Between a rock and a hard place. Posts: 11,235	I wouldn't mind seeing smoking banned from all public places, inside and out. It's a nasty, disgusting habit!

04-29-2003, 01:13 PM	#4
AKA Member Forum Star Join Date: Dec 17, 2001 Posts: 15,746	I agree. You still get second-hand smoke when you're outside. Call me a pinko commie bastard (just don't call me late for dinner), but I think the only place smoking should be allowed is on private property.

04-29-2003, 02:01 PM	#7
Mijada Spencers mom Forum 4000 Club Member Join Date: Dec 02, 2001 Location: eastern US Posts: 4,093	SMOKING SUCKS!

05-01-2003, 12:34 PM	#14
cablejockey Member Frequent Poster Join Date: Dec 29, 2001 Location: ontario canada Posts: 478	Sure, smoking is an unhealthy, annoying bad habit--but it is still a practice that is legal. Tobacco is a legal substance and people who indulge, should have the right to smoke. OR the government could ban tobacco, and pay to help every smoker kick the habit. A lot of trouble could have been avoided if the law stated that a bar or restaurant could be for smokers or not, then the 2 groups wouldnt have to mix. When it comes down to it, the taxes the state and federal governments receive on sales of cigarettes is such a huge amount of money, they dont want to give it up.