Lesson 13 Ban Sparks Smoking War
Sleepers are mad at bar patrons, and owners are mad at city
By Charis Jones鸳俦凤侣
1. NEW YORK-David Rabin doesn’t do cigarettes. In fact, he can’t stand smoke.
气魄2. But the co-owner of Lotus, one of the hottest night spots in Manhattan[1], says he now spends a good part of his time fighting a law that prohibits lighting up in bars and pushes smokers onto the street.
3. “This is suppod to be the city that never sleeps,” says Rabin, 42. “It’s now the city that never sleeps becau smokers are huddled beneath a four-story walk-up talking. Where el are they going to go?”
4. New York City is still coming to terms with smoke-free night life[2] three months after a ban took effect outlawing smoking in nearly all work-places, including restaurants and bars.
5. Five states—New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine and California—have pasd similar smoking restrictions that include bars and taverns. New York State’ s ban, which echoes the city’ s anti-smoking law, goes into effect July 24.
6. Just last week, Maine’s governor signed into law a ban on smoking in taverns, pool halls, lounges and some off-track betting[3] sites that goes into effect Jan. 1. Smoking is already outlawed in restaurants. On May 23, Connecticut’s governor signed a measure that will prohibit smoking in cafes, taverns, restaurants and public facilities by April 2004.
7. On Tuesday, Florida began a smoking ban that’s slightly less restrictive. It bans smoking in all enclod workplaces, including restaurants and bars where food sales make up at least 10% of their business.
Business is off
8. New York City’s law has sparked a million “butts” jokes in the tabloids and turned celebrities such as Britney Spears into alleged scofflaws for illegally puffing away.[4] And i
t has stirred fear and loathing among some residents and business that say customers don’t want to drink and nosh where they can’ t light up.
9. One New York City councilman recently called on the city and state to consider amending the anti-smoking laws—a move other city officials say is unlikely. Owners and managers of cafes and bars from Queens[5] to Manhattan say that business is off as much as 40% and that they have been forced to lay off employees. Some community reprentatives say noi complaints have rin since pub denizens began lighting up on the sidewalk.
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10. “If what I’m hearing is correct, this is having a devastating effect on the city’s economic recovery,[6]” says Queens councilman Tony Avella, who says he reluctantly voted for the ban but thinks the council should revisit the issue[7].
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11. His office is receiving a dozen complaints a week about litter, noi and occasional rights among smokers outside neighborhood bars. “We need to find out if there’s a way to prerve public health and allow people to drink and smoke at the same time,” he says.
12. Tho who have studied the impact of anti-smoking measures say such laws protect the health of bartenders, waitress and patrons and also bring in customers who were reluctant to socialize where smoking was allowed.[8]
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13. “What the data show is that no smoke-free air acts have ever hurt business,” says Tom Frieden, New York City’ s health commissioner. He says four out of five New Yorkers do not smoke.
14. In a city of apartment dwellers, where people live above restaurants and pubs, some say long-standing tensions between business and residents have only rin since smokers were forced to congregate outside.
巨蟹座和狮子座15. “We have found that our number of complaints have incread regarding noi on the street, particularly when it conies to smokers,” says Kyle Merker, chairman of one of Manhattan’s community boards. “Realistically, are they going to repeal the law? No. But maybe we can refine it.”
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16. Some club owners fear that anger about the excessive noi could make it harder for business to get liquor licens, or it may lead to forcing business to clo at rather than 4, which Rabin fears would make New York no different than other cities.
17. “This has brought about a civil war between night life and residents, both of whom have a legitimate right to exist,”[9] says Rabin, president of the New York Nightlife Association.
18. Ciaran Staunton, owner of O’Neill’s in Manhattan, says business is off 20% as former patrons head home to Connecticut or New Jery, where they can still smoke in a bar.
19. I’ve met some of my patrons coming out of liquor stores with six-packs[10] saying, “We’re going to drink where we can smoke,” he says. “The original legislation was put in to help employees, to provide them with clean air…. Well, we’ve laid off three employees becau of the smoking ban.”
