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ARCHIVES - 2002

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Albany Deal Would Raise Hospital Pay - January 16, 2002
By James C. McKinley Jr.

         ALBANY, Jan. 15 — After an all-night bargaining session, Gov.
         George E. Pataki and the leaders of the Senate and Assembly reached
         an agreement today on a health care bill that would provide $1.8 billion for
         salary increases for thousands of hospital workers over three years. The
         money would also pay for recruiting more workers.

         But the plan hinges on spending a $1.1 billion windfall to the state from the
         conversion of Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield into a for-profit company.
         The state would also pay for the plan by raising the tax on cigarettes to
         $1.50 a pack, from $1.11. In addition, the bill relies on Congress to increase
         the federal share of Medicaid payments to raise $2.1 billion over three years,
         which is considered a long shot, at best.

Mayor's Budget Calls for Cuts in Almost
Every City Agency - February 14, 2002
By Michael Cooper

In the first budget plan of his mayoralty, he also proposed raising the
cigarette tax by $1.42 a pack and borrowing $1.5 billion to close the gap.

And it calls for raising the cigarette tax to $1.50 a pack from
8 cents. A pack of cigarettes now costs about $5, with the tax.

         That would generate $250 million in new revenue and, he said, discourage
         smoking. "The numbers are clear: you raise cigarette taxes, the kids smoke
         less," Mr. Bloomberg said.

Commissioner Calls Smoking Public Health
Enemy No. 1 - February 15, 2002
By Jennifer Steinhauer

         A day after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said he would seek a
         significant increase in the cigarette tax but dismantle the City Health
         Department's smoking cessation program, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the health
         commissioner, said yesterday that his main priority would be to combat
         smoking in the city, perhaps using money from companies that make
         products to help smokers quit.

Mayor Says Police Officers Should Obey
Smoking Rule - February 16, 2002
By Al Baker

         Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg sternly pledged yesterday to stop city
         employees from smoking in public buildings — even if those
         employees happen to be police officers.

Cigarette Tax Would Cost State Millions, Critic Says - March 2, 2002
By Shaila K. Dewan

         Topping the list of things Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is asking for from Albany this year is permission
         to raise the cigarette tax to $1.50 a pack, a budget-balancing measure that the city is touting as
         pain-free for the state. But one budget critic, citing the city's own estimates, says the measure could
         cost the state more than $200 million in lost revenue.

        According to the city's estimates, the tax increase would raise $249 million even as it caused sales to
        drop by 165 million packs, or nearly 50 percent. That would cost the state, which also taxes cigarettes,
        $247.5 million; the loss could be partly made up if people went to other parts of the state, instead of,
        say, New Jersey, to buy their cigarettes.

        "It illustrates the folly of simultaneously treating tobacco as a public health nuisance and a public
        finance treasure chest," said E. J. McMahon, a senior fellow of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative
        research group.

Co-op Board Bans Smoking in Apartments by New Owners - April 30, 2002
By Dennis Hevesi

          A co-op board on the West Side of Manhattan has forbidden new buyers
          to smoke in their apartments, a restriction that real estate experts called the
          first of its kind in the nation.

          The board of 180 West End Avenue, a 452-unit building near Lincoln Center,
           is also requiring the buyers to declare whether they are smokers, an admission
           that could lead to the rejection of their applications.

           The rule will not be applied retroactively, and current owners will still have the right to
           allow tobacco smoking in their homes. The new rule at the 29-story building does not
           affect the seven other separate cooperatives in the complex between 66th and 70th
           Streets, known as Lincoln Towers.

A Changed Debate on Smoking Restrictions - June 1, 2002
By Shaila K. Dewan

        ALBANY, May 31 — The State Senate plans to vote for the first time on a law that would ban
        smoking in restaurants statewide, except in bar areas and separately ventilated smoking rooms,
        said John McArdle, a spokesman for the Senate Republican majority.

        The bill that reaches the Senate floor, however, may be less strict than a measure the Assembly passed
        this week. Some Republicans have raised concerns about how much business owners would have to
        spend to comply with new regulations.

A School With Ashtrays, but No Students - June 17, 2002
By Elissa Gootman

        HAUPPAUGE, N.Y., June 13 — Inside the gymnasium of the tiny Menorah Day School, somewhere
        between the basketball hoops and the construction-paper creations, is a dilemma worthy of a Talmudic
        scholar.

Four nights a week, the gymnasium is filled with the sounds of bingo: the ringing of a bell when the number 66 is
called, the subdued cry of B-1 or I-29, the pregame chattering about grandchildren and good luck.

          And on those nights, the room is filled with the smells of bingo: the delicate gray clouds emanating from the
          Marlboros, Newport Lights and Virginia Slims that are, for many of the players, as essential to bingo nights as the
         good-luck charms beside the markers.

County law explicitly prohibits smoking on school grounds, whether children are coloring in a classroom or tucked
into bed at home, and so Menorah Day was told the smoking at bingo would have to stop.

         But two weeks after the metal ashtrays were removed from the folding tables where bingo is played and the new
         policy announced, attendance dropped. More than 100 players signed a petition threatening to take their bingo
         money elsewhere if smoking remained forbidden.

"We were struggling to break even," Mrs. Bausk recalled.

Some of the most dedicated smokers, it turned out, were the biggest spenders.

"It's a Catch-22, and we're caught in the middle," she said. Desperate to keep the school alive, she came up with a
Solomonesque solution: "I said if we can't take away the cigarettes, what we have to do is remove the children."

No children, no school. No school, no restrictions.

        Three synagogues offered Mrs. Bausk space for makeshift classrooms, and for the last month or so of classes,
       which ended last week, the school's 46 preschool and elementary school students learned in exile while bingo
       continued to be held.

After a Deal, an Antismoking Measure is Held Back - June 18, 2002
By Shaila K. Dewan

       ALBANY, June 17 -- A painstakingly negotiated deal on a bill that would ban smoking in restaurants
       appeared to falter today when the Senate's Republican majority met to discuss the bill but did not let
       it come to the floor. Republicans said several details still had to be resolved.

      "The outstanding issue is how the bill affects the small restaurant owners," said John McArdle, a
      spokesman for the Republicans. The bill would allow smoking in bar areas and separately
      ventilated dining rooms. Some upstate senators have argued that restaurants with no bar would
      have to ban all smoking.

In Albany, Compromise Proves Elusive Deals Are Scant at End of
Legislative Session - June 21, 2002
By James C. McKinley Jr.

Deals were scarce today. A tentative deal reached last week on a bill to ban smoking in restaurants across the
state fell apart after the Republicans insisted on carving out an exception for small restaurants.

Smoking Looks Even Worse - June 24, 2002

        It is hard to believe there is anything new to be learned about the evils of tobacco. But a depressing new
       analysis by a team assembled by the World Health Organization has found that tobacco is a lot more
       dangerous than anyone previously realized, whether one smokes it directly or inhales the fumes expelled by
       someone else.

NYC C.L.A.S.H. Note: We include all reports on tobacco-related issues out of NY out of a sense of fairness. It does NOT mean we agree with all that is listed. We urge everyone to review our analysis of this new report.

Cigarettes Up to $7 a Pack With New Tax - July 1, 2002
By Michael Cooper

         Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg signed a bill yesterday that will raise the city's cigarette tax to $1.50 a pack
         beginning today. City officials and opponents of smoking say the increase will give New York the highest
         cigarette tax in the nation and push the price of some brands to more than $7 a pack.

At the hearing, Mr. Bloomberg found himself face to face with critics.

         Audrey Silk, the founder of a group called Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment, testified that
         consenting adults should be free to engage in risky behavior if they choose, and that smokers should not be
         singled out for higher taxes.

Then she turned the tables on the mayor and his predilection for some junk foods.

         "I know that you love to eat chunky peanut butter with bacon and bananas," she said. "How about I come out
         and start a campaign to tax that bacon, that's going to cause heart disease, and tax that super-chunky peanut
         butter that's going to kill you?"

Many Smokers Are Resigned to Costlier Habit - July 1, 2002
By Elissa Gootman

When Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg signed a bill yesterday raising the city's cigarette tax by $1.42 a
pack, he predicted that the move would not only enhance revenues, but also save lives.

       But in Lower Manhattan, most smokers interviewed yesterday as they stocked up on cartons at drugstores,
       lighted up at outdoor cafes and stubbed out butts on steamy sidewalks said that while the latest price increase
       was steep enough to make them angry, it was not enough to make them quit.

The Mayor Taxes Will Power - July 2, 2002

         At $7 or more a pack, cigarettes have become more than a bad habit. They are a luxury threatening to
         approach Beluga caviar in cost. But while both are acquired tastes, one is infinitely easier to quit than the
         other.

One smoking advocate, noting the mayor's fondness for Elvis-style snacks, suggested that a tax on chunky peanut
butter, bacon and bananas might be a good idea too.

How a Popular State Bill to Restrict Smoking in Restaurants
Faltered - July 9, 2002
By Shaila K. Dewan

Among the many pieces of unfinished business at the end of the legislative session this year, a bill that would
have restricted smoking in restaurants seemed among the most likely to succeed.

But the session has pretty much ended, and the bill was not brought up for a vote.

Cigarette Tax, Highest in Nation, Cuts Sales in City - August 6, 2002
By Michael Cooper

         The number of cigarettes sold in New York City has been cut almost in half since the city began charging
         the highest cigarette tax in the nation last month, driving the price of many cigarettes to $7.50 a pack,
         according to figures released yesterday.

Campaign Promotes Smoke-Free Environments - August 7, 2002
by John Schwartz

STANTON A. GLANTZ wants to tell restaurants and bars to go
smoke-free -- but he is having trouble getting the word out.

        Prof. Glantz, a tobacco researcher at the University of California,
        San Francisco, yesterday announced a new Web site, "TobaccoScam,"
        to counter what he calls a 20-year campaign by the tobacco industry
        to use the restaurant industry as a stalking horse to defeat
        anti-smoking rules.

But Prof. Glantz's attempts to get restaurant trade magazines to
accept ads for the site were not entirely successful.

Bloomberg Seeks to Ban Smoking in Every Restaurant and Bar - August 9, 2002
By Jennifer Steinhauer

The 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.

Talk of Ban Gives Smokers, Bars and Restaurants the Jitters - August 10, 2002
By Lydia Polgreen

        A few nights a week, Gene Scofield leaves his apartment near Lincoln Center and meets a few buddies at
        Rudy's Bar and Grill on Ninth Avenue near 45th Street for a drink or two. But since he found out that
        Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg wanted to keep him from smoking while he has a cocktail, he may just have to
        start drinking at home.

"If you can't have a cigarette in a bar," said Mr. Scofield, a 70-year-old retired medical secretary, "what is the
world coming to?"

The End of the Smoky Bar - August 12, 2002

         The few remaining outposts of smoking in public indoor spaces in New York City, such as small restaurants and
         bars, will soon be smoke-free — if Mayor Michael Bloomberg has his way, and it seems that he will. While most
         of the workers in these establishments and their nonsmoking customers breathe a sigh of relief, smokers find their
         universe shrinking yet again. The law, if passed by the City Council, will put the city alongside California and Delaware
         as the nation's most unaccommodating places for smoking.

Bum a Smoke? At This Price? - August 15, 2002
By Marc Santora

        Valerie Lee was smoking down her drinks at the Bowery Bar. For each dry vodka martini, there was another Virginia
        Slim. But she said she was going to have to change her pace. "I will probably go to one smoke for every other drink," she
        said. "I just can't do $7.50 a pack."

       Now, with each cigarette costing nearly 40 cents, bumming a smoke is not so simple. Smokers tell stories of friends who
       carry fooler packs with only one cigarette so they can claim it is their last, while the full pack remains hidden. Some
       smokers go so far as to load their regular Marlboros into a menthol box, knowing the casual smoker will turn up his nose.

      Another possible solution was suggested by Johanna Saum, a bartender at Bowery Bar. "People keep telling me I should
      sell cigarettes by the individual cigarette," she said. The smokers around the bar, where packs sell for $9, nodded in
      agreement, with one patron chiming in, "Whoever does that will make a fortune."

Shared Misery: Newsstands Feel the Tax's Pinch Too - August 18, 2002
By Jim O'Grady

"Take $7 a pack," he said, "and multiply that by 365 days a year and you get $5,110." (The price for a pack in the city ranges
from $6.50 to $7.50.)

Most of that money would have gone to Maganlal Pandya, the store's owner. Mr. Pandya was glad that his friend and regular
customer had quit smoking, but angry about what had driven him to do it. On July 3, the Bloomberg administration raised the
city's cigarette tax from 8 cents a pack to $1.50 a pack, which must be paid on top of the state's $1.50-a-pack tax.

"It's a killer," said Mr. Pandya, who has owned the store for 16 years. "Every store like this, you make your largest profit from
cigarette sales. So how do you survive?"

One of Mr. Ahmed's customers, Barbara Boyle, has found other sources for her habit.

"To tell you the truth," she said, "I've been sneaking into Pennsylvania." She also looks for Web sites that sell cigarettes from
other states and Indian reservations, but her brand, True Green 100's, is hard to find. She occasionally returns to the A to Z,
partly for lack of options and partly, she said, "because I still like to support my local store owner."

Ms. Boyle's friend, Cathy Minozzi, smokes Virginia Slim Ultra Lights. She, too, has largely forsaken the corner store for the
Internet and occasional two-for-one sales at other stores. "I try not to go here, unless I'm in desperate need," she said.

Such strategies and sentiments have brought Mr. Pandya, a voluble man who sometimes sings to his customers, to the brink of
commercial despair.

"In two or three months, you won't see me here," he said of his spot behind the counter at the store, which is plastered with
cigarette ads. "I should never have gotten into this business."

Nassau May Follow City's Lead on Antismoking Proposal - August 24, 2002
By David M. Herszenhorn

        Democratic lawmakers in Nassau County introduced tough new antismoking legislation today
        that would mirror the strict ban on smoking in all New York City restaurants and bars proposed this month by Mayor
        Michael R. Bloomberg. Nassau legislators said they also hoped to reach agreement with Suffolk and Westchester
        Counties, which have been considering their own tougher laws, to create an eight-county no-smoking zone across lower
        New York State.

If People Are Mad, He Must Be Mayor - August 25, 2002
By Jennifer Steinhauer

Perhaps it annoys him, or maybe he finds it a badge of honor.

Either way, the inescapable fact is that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is making enemies — finally.

Mr. Bloomberg, whose mayoralty was formed early on with equal parts inclusiveness and inoffensiveness, has in recent weeks
angered constituents as varied as the city's neighborhoods: advocates for the homeless, smokers, minority politicians and
garden-variety New Yorkers who now feel guilty every time they look at an empty Pepsi bottle.

Although critics of his proposed smoking policy almost always fail to address the policy's central goal as articulated by Mr.
Bloomberg — not to protect smokers, but rather those who have to breathe secondhand smoke — they nonetheless are
perhaps his most bitter opponents.

NYC C.L.A.S.H. Note: Fail to address?!? How many Op-Ed pieces are we supposed to send that they refuse to print before they say we do?

A Jubilant Barroom Toast to Smoke-Free Air - August 27, 2002
By Jane E. Brody

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's proposal to extend New York's smoking ban to all offices, bars and restaurants - even pool halls, bowling alleys and bingo parlors - would not make the city the first to have such a law. California and dozens of towns and counties already have similar laws.

NYC C.L.A.S.H. Note: The NY Times has been most biased in its reporting on the issue. This article in particular goes on to tell the most grossest of lies. Letters to the editor will be sent disputing the secondhand smoke junk science. Will they print these or accuse us of "failing to address" the issue? (see above)

But wait! On August 20th, Jane E. Brody wrote "In a World of Hazards, Worries Are Often Misplaced." In it, she writes "the dose makes the poison." Her first piece is completely contradictory to her piece on the 27th. Hatred throws all reason and standards out the window obviously. That's what we keep telling you.

City and County Officials Discuss Curbs on Smoking - August 29, 2002

MINEOLA, N.Y., Aug. 28 — Differing only in how far they want to go in limiting smoking in public, Nassau, Suffolk and
Westchester County legislators met with New York City officials today to compare notes and voice their hope that others
will also take up the cause.

Dutchess County has already joined their fight. On Tuesday, legislators there introduced a bill that would ban smoking in
restaurants, bars and nightclubs. There are currently no county restrictions on any of these places, County Legislator Woody N.
Klose said.

Early this month, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg proposed expanding New York City's curbs on public smoking by completely
banning smoking in bars and restaurants, including outdoor cafes. Last week, Nassau Democrats introduced similar legislation.
While Suffolk is still drafting a bill, Westchester has several proposals, none as comprehensive as the one Mr. Bloomberg hopes the City Council will approve.

Circling Their Stogies Against Mayor - September 20, 2002
By Clyde Haberman

Mr. Bloomberg's campaign to outlaw smoking in all bars and restaurants drew a band of dissenters the other day to Gallagher's Steak House, on West 52nd Street. Call it the Charge of the Light 'Em Up Brigade. Two dozen people, mainly cigar-smoking
men, puffed while they huffed about a crusade that they consider unnecessary, given existing smoking laws that seem to work fine. To them, the proposed ban is zealotry run amok.

There is nothing like a politically incorrect event to draw a herd of notebooks and microphones, and the anti-Bloomberg protest was no exception. It was, in the main, a witty group, reaffirming this nonsmoking columnist's conviction that people in a
restaurant's smoking section tend to be more interesting, pound for pound, than those at the goody-goody tables.

Antismoking Bill's Chances May Hinge on Personalities - October 2, 2002
By Diane Cardwell

Relations between Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and some members of the City Council have deteriorated to such an
extent that Council leaders are warning that the mayor's prized antismoking legislation may be in jeopardy.

        Publicly, Council leaders say they are simply waiting for hearings and opinions from all interested parties before enacting a
        potentially sweeping law. "We're in the process of reviewing the legislation — there are some members who support it,
        there are other members who have concerns," Mr. Miller said yesterday. "What you try to do in this case is to strike the
        right balance, and you can't do that without having a thoughtful and deliberative process."

But privately, council members and their aides say that the growing resentment over the way Mr. Bloomberg approached
the issue could stand in the way of the bill's passing.

Last Call for a Smoke - October 6, 2002
By John Rather

JOHN RYERSON, the owner of McGuire's Restaurant and Comedy Club in Bohemia, said he went $250,000 into hock two years ago to create a separate room for smokers.

There was no other choice, Mr. Ryerson said last week, if he were to comply with a 1995 Suffolk County law that sought to
protect non-smoking patrons from secondhand smoke. "It was that or go smoke-free and find another job," said Mr. Ryerson,
adding that, for his business, smoking is the difference between profit and loss.

Now he and other restaurant and bar-restaurant owners in Suffolk and Nassau are complaining bitterly that local officials are
about to change the rules again, negating some owners' expensive compliance efforts with outright bans on smoking in virtually all public indoor places.

Smoking Banned in Nassau Bars and Restaurants - October 8, 2002
By Bruce Lambert

Nassau County tonight became the first county in New York to extend its ban on smoking in the workplace to cover all bars, restaurants, bowling alleys and bingo halls.

Fighting Mayor's Proposed Smoking Ban - October 10, 2002
By Jennifer Steinhauer

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and smoking opponents will face off with restaurant, nightclub and bar owners today at the
first hearing on the mayor's proposal to ban smoking in all public places in New York City, which would be one of the
strictest antismoking laws in the country.

When Mr. Bloomberg first announced his proposal in August as a way to protect the health of restaurant workers, there were
few voices of dissent.

But in recent weeks, opponents have become more vocal, sending letters to newspapers, peppering City Council members with phone calls and visits and hiring lobbyists.

Bloomberg, Heckled, Presses Smoking Curbs - October 11, 2002
By Jennifer Steinhauer

City Council hearings are sometimes important. They are occasionally well attended. But they rarely feature the mayor, a
roomful of his hecklers and a man dressed as a giant cigarette.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg pleaded his case yesterday to a packed Council chamber for legislation to ban smoking in all
indoor public spaces, a measure that, if passed, would make New York City among the toughest places in the nation to be a
smoker.

But just as Mr. Bloomberg is sure of the righteousness of ridding the city of clouds of smoke, his opponents are equally
committed to stopping him, arguing that the legislation would hurt the city's economy. "The mayor is a brilliant businessman,"
testified Ciaran Staunton, who owns O'Neill's bar in Midtown Manhattan. "But he knows absolutely nothing about the bar
business."

The testimony, which lasted nearly eight hours, at times seemed to cut along class lines, with small-bar owners from less affluent
areas of the city suggesting that their billionaire mayor was insensitive to the dynamics of the restaurant business.

"If I had the mayor's net worth," said James McBratney, president of the Staten Island Restaurant and Tavern Association, "I
wouldn't be here today."

The mayor was roundly heckled when he suggested that bars would actually make more money if they banned smoking,
reasoning that patrons would simply buy more drinks. One opponent of the legislation was removed from the chamber as he
screamed to loud applause, "It's a private sin."

Smoking Issue Is Clear: The Other Side's Wrong - October 11, 2002
By Clyde Haberman

The defenders of virtue battled the forces of darkness at City Hall yesterday. The hard part was figuring out which was which.

If you were among those absolutely convinced that anyone holding a cigarette is New York's greatest health menace since
Typhoid Mary, there was no question. The knight on the white horse was Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. He went before the
City Council's Health Committee yesterday to explain why New York must reinvent Prohibition by outlawing smoking in all
restaurants, bars, pool halls — you name it, even private clubs.

There you had it, the battle of virtues: crusaders for clean lungs and fresh indoor air against champions of choice and the right of
people to behave as stupidly as they want.

Ah, but smoking is different, said the mayor, a reformed sinner who gave up the weed years ago. Bars and restaurants are
workplaces, he said. Smoking puts waiters and bartenders at risk, so it is government's duty to protect them, same as if asbestos was flaking from the ceiling. "All workers deserve a safe, healthy work environment," he said.

His position made no accommodation for the idea that bars and restaurants, not to mention private clubs, are hardly ordinary
work places.

In California, Bars Live on Without Their Indoor Smog - October 11, 2002
By Nick Madigan

LOS ANGELES — There is something missing from a barfly's hands when cigarettes are taken out of the picture.

At least that is what many of the regulars at Molly Malone's have believed since Jan. 1, 1998, when a California law banned
smoking in restaurants and bars. The bottom line suffered, too.

"It was devastating for about a year and a half," said Sean Ryan, a bartender at Malone's, as he served a Coors at noon today to a customer at the dark end of the bar on Fairfax Avenue. "It emptied the place. It wasn't a subtle difference; it was huge."

California, known for a generally progressive view toward healthful living, may have been the perfect place to enact such a wide-ranging law, the first in the country. In New York, it may not be so easy.

"They're going to have a tougher time — the personality of New Yorkers doesn't lend itself to being pushed around," said an
engineer named Ken, who chose not to give his last name as he sat at the bar at Malone's.

The Smoke Nazis - October 19, 2002
By Bill Keller

The mayor of New York City does not seem to be a particularly puritanical man. Michael Bloomberg is a guy who, when asked if he had ever tried marijuana, replied: "You bet I did. And I enjoyed it." (Alas, he's not willing to advocate decriminalizing the experience for the rest of us, but that's a subject for another day.) He once fondly likened his college fraternity to the one in "Animal House," and he still enjoys a party. He is no libertarian, let alone libertine, but his attitude toward private pleasure is pretty much live and let live.

On the subject of tobacco, though, he has surprised many constituents with his zeal. First he slapped on a city tax increase that raises the price of a pack of cigarettes to around $7. Now he proposes to outlaw smoking in every bar and restaurant in the five boroughs of New York.

Is this the smug virtue of a reformed smoker? A bit of bash-tobacco political opportunism? A rich man's paternalism toward what has become more and more a working-class vice? It's not unreasonable to suspect a bit of each: Mr. Bloomberg is a convert from a pack-a-day habit, Big Tobacco is the domestic equivalent of Saddam Hussein, and Mr. Bloomberg's class empathy is more top-hat than tip-jar.

Lax New York Laws Make Big Money Bigger - October 22, 2002
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

ALBANY, Oct. 21 — A remarkable series of legislative battles was fought here over the last year, linked by a recurring
theme. In each case, powerful business and labor interests, armed with well-connected lobbyists and money for campaign
contributions, won a victory that looked unlikely not too long before.

The Legislature and Gov. George E. Pataki legalized several forms of gambling that they had earlier rejected. They appeared poised to ban smoking in restaurants, then let the measure die.

Governor Pataki avoided commenting on the no-smoking bill until late in the legislative session, when he and his aides said that
he had concerns about its effects on small restaurants, but that he had not formed a position. Several Republican senators said
that, in fact, the governor was privately pressing Mr. Bruno to either kill the bill or water it down severely, a claim the governor's office denied.

Mr. Bruno said the bill died over a matter of principle.

"There was a legitimate concern about not hurting small businesses," he said. "We heard their concerns, and we were not going
to ignore them." The campaign contributions, he said, "had nothing to do with it."

A City Councilman Proposes a Narrower Ban on Smoking - October 23, 2002
By Thomas J. Lueck

One of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's staunchest allies on the City Council called yesterday for less sweeping antismoking
legislation, a sign that the mayor's effort to ban smoking in all indoor public spaces faces stiff political resistance.

The councilman, James S. Oddo, a Staten Island Republican, has been a sponsor of the bill the mayor has promoted that would extend the city's smoking ban to every bar and restaurant and to other indoor settings, as well as to outdoor cafes.

But in a letter to Gifford Miller, the council speaker, Mr. Oddo described "a vast array of differing views" on the mayor's
proposal.

He asked that a more moderate smoking bill, which Mr. Oddo introduced in April, should be brought to a Council vote before
the one sought by the mayor.

Mr. Oddo said he handed Mr. Miller a copy of the letter late yesterday, as both were leaving City Hall, but did not know how
Mr. Miller would respond.

"He read a few lines, looked at me to see if I was serious, and left," Mr. Oddo said.

Mr. Miller did not return telephone calls for comment last night.

Cigarette Makers Take Anti-Smoking Ads Personally - October 27, 2002
By Alina Tugend

Body bags. Dying rats. Dog urine.

These are some of the images used in state and nationwide anti-smoking commercials that are sounding a contentious theme.
Rather than spotlighting the ill effects of cigarettes, the ads are focusing on the supposed evils of the tobacco industry.

The commercials, which run on youth-oriented television and radio stations, rotate every few months. Among the most vivid are
ones that depict body bags piled up in front of the headquarters of Philip Morris, gasping rats to dramatize that cigarettes include the same ingredient — ammonia — as rat poison, and a dog walker offering to sell dog urine to tobacco companies because cigarettes contain urea.

Anti-smoking advocates and tobacco companies agree that the campaign has been highly effective. But while
smoking-prevention groups say that such campaigns resonate, especially with teenagers, industry officials argue that in some
cases they do little more than vilify cigarette companies and their employees.

Passage of Antismoking Law May Be Linked to Wage Bill - October 31, 2002
By Diane Cardwell

The City Council and the Bloomberg administration remained at an impasse yesterday over the mayor's antismoking legislation, as Council officials hastily scheduled a second hearing on the measure for tomorrow.

From the beginning, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has made it clear that extending the city's antismoking law to small
restaurants, bars and bar areas was a personal policy goal, but it has faced opposition in the Council from members worried
about the economic impact on establishments in their neighborhoods.

Speaker Gifford Miller has remained noncommittal on the smoking bill, and officials signaled that he would not support it unless
the mayor backed Mr. Miller's own pet measure: a bill to guarantee certain workers a so-called living wage, which the
administration has opposed.

Officials have insisted that the two measures were being considered separately and on the merits alone, but Mr. Miller had
suggested to Mr. Bloomberg that if he could provide a version of the living wage bill that he could live with, the Council would
try to accommodate him in the same fashion on the smoking legislation, according to someone who was involved in the
negotiations.

Council officials had hoped to reach such an agreement on the living wage bill before yesterday's committee vote. In exchange,
they would schedule a speedy hearing on the smoking bill, at which they could present a compromise acceptable to the
Bloomberg administration. It appeared yesterday that none of those goals had been met.

After a day of frantic negotiations, a Council committee passed a version of the living wage bill that Mr. Bloomberg had not yet
decided whether to sign, said Edward Skyler, a spokesman for the mayor. And although the Council had scheduled a hearing for tomorrow on the smoking bill, officials said they could always cancel it.

Council Hearing on Smoking Delayed as Talks Continue - November 1, 2002
By Diane Cardwell

A second City Council hearing on Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's sweeping antismoking bill — one that promised to be another version of the circus-like first hearing three weeks ago — was abruptly canceled yesterday.

Officials said negotiations behind the scenes, which could lead to an exemption for cigar bars if a law is eventually enacted, had
not progressed enough for a hearing today.

"With interested parties on both sides of the issue expressing the need for more time, and with negotiations continuing, we simply felt it was best to defer the hearing to a later date," said Chris Policano, a spokesman for the council speaker, Gifford Miller.

So far, Council leaders have shown an unwillingness to simply go along.

The recent vote in Nassau County to extend its smoking ban to bars, restaurants, bowling alleys and bingo halls has put extra
pressure on Mr. Bloomberg: for him to win anything less than the sweeping legislation he is seeking could be seen as a failure.

The pressure is intense for the Council, too. Many members are being lobbied by neighborhood bar and restaurant owners who
say that their businesses are already shaky because of fizzling tourism. The smoking ban, they say, would kill them. Council
members also say they worry that bar patrons spilling onto streets to smoke would create a nuisance for residents, whose votes
the council members will need in a year.

It's New York. It's Elaine's. Let Our Patrons Light Up. - November 6, 2002
By Elaine Kaufman
Elaine Kaufman owns Elaine's restaurant in Manhattan

A lot's been written about my restaurant over the years. Mostly it's about the celebrities, the writers — George Plimpton, Norman Mailer, Woody Allen.

But the place is about more than famous people. On a recent Friday, at about 4 p.m., my waiters were setting up for dinner when I noticed they'd set a large table for 14 or so in the back of the restaurant in the no-smoking zone.

The whole thing was wrong. I knew it would never work. Odds are that in a group that large, at least one person smokes. I told Humberto, one of my waiters, to move the group to the front of the restaurant across from the bar. That's our smoking section. That one move cost me almost half my smoking section for the entire evening. Didn't matter. I wanted to do the right thing.

I'm in a service business, have been for almost 40 years here at Elaine's. In my business, it's about hospitality. We serve people. We like to please. We'd much rather say yes than no. If they want their fish cooked without butter, fine. If they can't use salt, no problem. And if they don't want to be around smoke, they don't have to be. With the current setup, which was instituted under the Giuliani administration, 85 percent of the place is now no-smoking. It works.

So what do we have now? Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg wants us to ban smoking entirely. He wants us to say no to the customers — neighborhood people, regulars and the tourists. Let us not forget about the tourists. We all know what tourism means to New York. And we can't afford to lose any.

The city is hurting. Hotel occupancy is down. I can't even discuss what's happening to Chinatown. I, for one, don't want to give tourists, especially international travelers, one more reason for not coming to New York. Yet the Bloomberg administration wants us restaurateurs to tell them that if they want a cigar or cigarette after dinner, no go. Can we afford to lose this business? I don't think so.

So I have a plan. It's very simple. The city wants to protect people from second-hand smoke. We restaurateurs want to keep doing business. And the city needs money to close its huge budget gap. So I propose a smoking license for restaurants, hotels and bars. It would be similar to a liquor license. For let's say $1,500 or $2,000 a year, a restaurateur, hotelier or bar owner could obtain a license for each of its venues. With the license, we would simply maintain the current smoking laws, which confine smoking to the bar area in all restaurants with more than 35 seats.

We'd post a sign out front, letting people know we're a smoking establishment. And here's a grown-up idea: let people make their own decision about whether to enter. As far as the employees go, it's up to them, too. Since not all restaurants will choose to be smoking establishments, the work force will have other options.

Say there are 20,000 places to eat and drink in the five boroughs. At $1,500 to $2,000 a year, the city would make about $40 million. Then you throw in the hotels and you're talking major change. Even if only half of the places apply for the license, you still have a nice, healthy number. (Oh, and for the record, I quit smoking years ago.)

Budget Talks May Delay Vote on Mayor's No-Smoking Bill - November 12, 2002
By Jennifer Steinhauer

City officials said yesterday that lawmakers would almost certainly not vote today on Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's proposal to ban smoking in all public spaces in New York, meaning the measure might be overshadowed by the budget issue.

Mr. Bloomberg views the smoking bill as the most important piece of municipal legislation he has sought since taking office, and
he had hoped to have the bill wrapped up by the Great American Smokeout on Nov. 21. But passage is now considered highly
unlikely by that date, as the bill will now take a back seat to the intensifying budget negotiations taking place between the mayor's staff and the City Council.

Council leaders and the mayor have been unable to agree on the breadth of the mayor's proposed bill. Mr. Bloomberg, who
views a smoking ban as a worker protection, would like to see smoking outlawed in all bars, restaurants and outdoor cafes. The current law, passed in 1995, bans smoking only in restaurants that seat more than 35 people.

Council members would like to see some exemptions, like cigar bars, stand-alone bars or restaurants that create an enclosed
smoking area.

Councilwoman Sees No Vote on Smoking Ban This Year - November 13, 2002
By Diane Cardwell

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's proposal to ban smoking in almost all public places is unlikely to go to a vote before the end of this year, a City Council member with a vital role in the legislation said yesterday.

The council member, Christine Quinn, commented on the legislation's slim chances for rapid action after a second marathon
hearing on the matter brought to City Hall an array of people for and against the mayor's proposed smoking ban.

"There's obviously a lot that's going to be on our agenda now — potential tax increases, the budget modification — so we're
going to have to do this in the context of all of that," Ms. Quinn, chairwoman of the council's Health Committee, said.

"So it makes it less likely that this passes by the end of this calendar year," she said. Ms. Quinn emphasized it was not impossible and said negotiations would continue.

A delay would be a disappointment for Mr. Bloomberg, who wanted a law to sign by the Great American Smokeout on Nov.
21.

Some council members would like to see cigar bars, small owner-operated bars and businesses that create enclosed smoking
areas or install high-tech filtration systems exempted from the new law. But because the two sides have not reached an
agreement, the Nov. 21 deadline is considered all but impossible to meet, and it may be some time before the bill can come up
for a vote, officials said. Ms. Quinn plans a third hearing, but has not scheduled it.

As negotiations over the budget heat up, the smoking issue is moving to the back burner. Mr. Bloomberg is expected to present
his proposed cuts to the current budget tomorrow.

"Everybody's about to shift gears into budget," a council official said. "There's no longer a feeling that it has to be done now.
Everybody agreed to move on and to try to come up with a bill."

Toward that end, council officials said, the hearing yesterday became another opportunity for the public to weigh in on the
smoking issue. Officials on the mayor's office and the council's office report receiving more e-mail messages, calls and letters
about this issue than about any other. And though the hearing yesterday was far less circuslike than the first one last month,
emotions still ran high. Ms. Quinn quickly resorted to threats of clearing the room and banging her gavel to keep the proceedings flowing smoothly.

Officials Weigh Tobacco Funds as a Fiscal Fix - November 21, 2002
By Richard Perez-Pena

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's plans for pulling the city out of its fiscal crisis include borrowing $1.4 billion against expected payments from tobacco companies, and New York State lawmakers are considering similar moves to close the state's own vast deficit.

Yearning to Inhale Free - November 21, 2002
By Susan Sachs

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg wants a law to guarantee a smoke-free environment in all workplaces and public places, including clubs, bars, restaurants, movie theaters and cafes.

He has heard plenty about the proposal from celebrity restaurant owners, bartenders, doctors, tavern owners and unions. He has probably not heard, however, the concerned and somewhat novel opinions of a rarely polled segment of his public — immigrants.

They say he ought to stand a day in their worn-down shoes.

Indeed, many immigrants seem puzzled by the mayor's crusade to banish indoor smoking to protect workers from second-hand smoke. Naïvely, they chalk it up to an American enthusiasm for regulations or, conversely, a determination to dictate fate.

George Leccese, an Italian immigrant working as a bartender at the Winter Garden, describes himself as a light and, most important, a fatalistic smoker.

"In the morning you get up and get hit by a car — bam — and you're dead," he says. "You walk down the street and a sniper shoots you — bam — and you're dead. People die of cancer who have never smoked in their lives. My aunt, who is 94 and plays soccer, still smokes.

"Next we'll have to pay taxes for fresh air or groceries or car exhaust," he continues, working himself up to real indignation. "Everybody, but not Bloomberg, should make a decision for themselves. This is a free country."

With Third Hearing Set, Mayor and Council Are Near Agreement
on Antismoking Bill - December 7, 2002
By Diane Cardwell

With the budget behind them, City Council leaders and the Bloomberg administration have intensified negotiations on the mayor's prized antismoking legislation, and hope to reach an agreement as early as next week.

Councilwoman Christine Quinn, who, as chairwoman of the Health Committee has a vital role in moving the legislation, has
scheduled a third hearing on the matter for Friday morning, and officials said they hoped to have an agreement before then. Ms.
Quinn said negotiations were ongoing and the committee would not vote at the next hearing, but could do so soon after.

"Hopefully, we'll be able to come out with a bill that in the near future will satisfy everyone's goal of protecting as many workers
as possible," Ms. Quinn said.

Several council members had balked at the original bill, arguing that in a time of economic uncertainty, the cit
any laws that might hurt hotels, pubs and nightspots that attract a smoking clientele. They also argued that their constituents
would not tolerate the public nuisance of bar patrons spilling onto the streets to smoke.

The Council had suggested any number of amendments and exceptions to the proposed law, but over the months, its list of
changes has diminished. They now appear to be focusing on gaining an exemption for cigar bars and individually owned
businesses with no employees.

Pataki Seeks to Balance Budget With Tobacco Settlement Funds - December 11, 2002
By James C. McKinley Jr.

Gov. George E. Pataki said today that he would ask the Legislature to authorize selling bonds backed by money from the tobacco-suit settlement to close a projected $2 billion shortfall in this year's budget.

In announcing the proposal, the governor signaled that he intends to borrow money to bail the state out of its fiscal problems rather than resort to layoffs or cuts in state aid to local schools, as other states, like Connecticut and California, have done.

Deal Reached to Tighten Smoking Restrictions in New York - December 11, 2002
By Diane Cardwell

New York City will enact a sweeping ban on indoor smoking that will include nearly all bars and restaurants, under a compromise between the Bloomberg administration and City Council leaders that was announced today.

The Council scheduled a hearing on the bill for Friday, with a vote possible as early as next week. If it passed, it could take effect in March.

"It's a bill I can work with," Mr. Bloomberg said. "I would have, of course, preferred the original version, but we live in a democracy and the City Council felt strongly about a handful of carve-outs and I said in the end fine."

NYC C.L.A.S.H. Note: Did he use the word "democracy"? HAH!

Bloomberg Gets Deal to Expand Smoking Curbs - December 12, 2002
By Diane Cardwell

New York City will enact a sweeping ban on indoor smoking that will include nearly all bars and restaurants, under an agreement announced yesterday between the Bloomberg administration and the City Council.

But council members had balked both at the way Mr. Bloomberg presented his bill and at its scope. The agreement includes several exemptions that the mayor agreed to after extensive negotiations between his office and City Council leaders. The exempted establishments include a handful of cigar bars already in operation, bars with no employees except the owners, nonprofit
membership clubs with no employees, and bars or certain health care facilities with enclosed smoking rooms.

The law, which could come to a vote next week and go into effect as early as March, does not go as far as a recently enacted law in neighboring Nassau County.

The mayor's proposal elicited some of the biggest jeers of his mayoralty, with critics jamming a City Council hearing room and
angry denunciations filling the letters-to-the-editor columns of the city's newspapers. The proposal was denounced both for
infringing on the rights of smokers and for potentially hurting the city's tourist, entertainment and night-life industries.

Hundreds of localities have some variation on laws against public smoking, many with their own exceptions, like allowing people to light up in stand-alone bars or permitting smoking in restaurant bars that have separate ventilation systems.

The ban as currently envisioned by New York City lawmakers has its own exceptions. Although it would prohibit smoking in
restaurants, bars (including hotel bars), sports stadiums, billiard parlors, bingo halls and schools, the law would allow for smoking in separate, enclosed rooms in bars and nightclubs that employees do not generally enter and which are used solely for smoking. The ventilation requirements for those rooms, however, are so extensive that few officials believe businesses would take advantage of the provision, especially since the exception expires three years after the law goes into effect.

While eliminating existing smoking rooms in workplaces like schools and sports arenas, the new law would leave in place an
exception for smoking rooms in residential health care facilities, like those for recovering substance abusers.

Advocates for the workplace ban were similarly pleased with the agreement, arguing that from a public health standpoint, the
exceptions would have little effect. Even council officials concede that they are aware of no bars that fit the definition of the
owner-operated establishment.

Representatives of the bar industry criticized the agreement, including the exemptions.

Puffing Till the Bitter End as the Legal Ban Looms - December 12, 2002
By Marc Santora

Informed that the City Council and the Bloomberg administration had just reached an agreement that would ban smoking in nearly every bar and restaurant in New York City, Mr. Tooher was incredulous.

"What is this, California?" asked Mr. Tooher, a mortgage broker.

Laura Stevens, 41, a nonsmoker from London, was also shocked that smoking in New York bars would be verboten. "In
London, you go to the pubs and they are very crowded and smoky," she said. "When you go out to have a drink, you should be able to have a smoke because they just go hand in hand."

Several bartenders and owners said they were not sure the rule would be enforceable. Jimmy McHale, whose family has owned McHale's since 1953, said, "I am going to make a good-faith attempt to enforce the rules, but I am not going to play smoke cop."

Bloomberg Officials Defend Compromise on Smoking Bill - December 14, 2002
By Diane Cardwell

Senior Bloomberg administration officials defended a compromise version of the mayor's sweeping anti-smoking legislation
yesterday from attacks by City Council members unhappy with changes negotiated by their own leaders.

Testifying before the Council's Health Committee, Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff and Health Commissioner Thomas R.
Frieden argued that banning smoking in almost all bars and restaurants could benefit those businesses, and that the exceptions they agreed to were pragmatic and fair.

Bar and nightclub owners have argued that a ban on smoking in their establishments would devastate their businesses, and city
officials have conceded that few, if any, of them will take advantage of the provision that allows the construction of special smoking rooms, because the requirements are burdensome and the exemption expires after three years.

"As has been said, politics is the art of the possible," Dr. Frieden told the committee members yesterday. "And just as seven cigar bars represents a compromise, so a very small number, if any, facilities that would construct a separate room would represent a small exemption."

Mr. Doctoroff, who is in charge of economic development and rebuilding, said the changes could help the bar business in a time of economic fragility. In a random survey conducted in Los Angeles and San Francisco, he said, bar owners reported no negative impact on their customer bases or revenues in the wake of a California state ban.

But bar owners and council members challenged that evidence, and questioned the logic of making decisions about New York City pubs and taverns based on a West Coast survey. Ciaran Staunton, in his third appearance before the Council on the bill, said he planned to lay off 3 of the 12 employees at his Midtown bar, O'Neill's, in anticipation of a 20 percent drop-off in business.

And several committee members, some of whose names appeared as sponsors of the amended bill, criticized it nonetheless.

"The thing that I think has been more appalling to me is the fraudulence of this compromise," said Philip Reed of Manhattan, who is not among those 26 sponsors. "I haven't met anybody who has read through those regulations and realistically thinks anybody's going to be able to build a room in their bar."

Kendall Stewart of Brooklyn went so far as to ask a group of witnesses testifying against the ban in bars for further amendments they might incorporate. James S. Oddo of Staten Island, who had drafted his own anti-smoking legislation, wondered aloud if the exemptions created an uneven playing field among bars competing for customers.

And Yvette D. Clarke of Brooklyn argued that the exemptions were elitist because they would place unfair restrictions on small
bars, especially outside Manhattan, while providing loopholes for cigar bars and private clubs like American Legion halls that have no employees. "If I lived in that neighborhood, and I know `American Legion: no problem; the guy next door: got problems,' " she hypothesized, referring to a situation she said is common in Brooklyn, "I'm going to the American Legion hall."

Bloomberg administration officials conceded that there were some philosophical inconsistencies in the proposed legislation, but
added that the Council could always revise or repeal the provisions in the future.

Nonetheless, Council leaders remained optimistic that the bill, which needs 26 votes to pass, would be approved, probably at the next session of the full Council on Wednesday.

"I feel like further issues got raised about some of the amendments, but at this hearing more people testified in support than against," said Christine Quinn, chairwoman of the Health Committee, after emerging from the six-hour hearing. "And we now have more sponsors than we did prior to the compromise bill being released."

Gross-Out Health Warnings - December 15, 2002
By Kate Jacobs

...two congressmen introduced a bill in the House of Representatives that would require tobacco manufacturers to display graphic warning labels on all cigarette packs.

Smoking Bill Is Adopted - December 19, 2002
By Diane Cardwell

After months of negotiations, more than 20 hours of public testimony and some of the most intense, heated debates of this
administration, the City Council approved Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's antismoking bill yesterday at the last of its
voting sessions this year.

The bill passed 42 to 7 with 2 abstentions, an unusually large number of negative votes for a Council that tends to vote in
lockstep with its leaders. It could become law around the end of March, depending on when Mr. Bloomberg actually signs it.

Mayor Signs Law to Ban Smoking Soon at Most Bars - December 31, 2002
By Michael Cooper

New Yorkers will still be able to light cigarettes in bars this St. Patrick's Day. But by the end of March, thanks to a law signed yesterday by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, smoking will be banned in almost all bars and restaurants in New York
City.

Mayor Bloomberg called the smoking ban one of the most important things he has done in his life, saying that it would save
"literally tens of thousands of lives."

The law, which Bloomberg administration officials said would take effect on March 30, makes few exceptions. They include
existing cigar bars, bars with no employees except the owners, nonprofit clubs with no employees, and some bars with enclosed smoking rooms.

The city banned smoking in most restaurants in 1995, but continued to allow smoking in bars and the bar areas of restaurants.

Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council Speaker, Gifford Miller, said that the city's new law was meant to protect the
employees of bars and restaurants from the dangers of secondhand smoke.

Colin McCord, an assistant commissioner of the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, said the law would help fight
what he called an "epidemic."

"It is the most important epidemic of our time," he said. "Each year the Health Department signs death certificates of 10,000
New Yorkers who died because of a tobacco-related cause; 1,000 of these people died because of exposure to secondhand
smoke."

Still, the measure was unpopular with some people. A Staten Island man dressed in a Superman suit paraded in front of City Hall yesterday, holding up a hand-painted sign which, in vulgar language, denounced and threatened the mayor.

Asked if he was worried that the smoking ban would hurt his popularity, the mayor said that 80 percent of New Yorkers do not smoke. "The only poll that is really going to matter is when I run for re-election in another three years," he said.

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January 16, 2002
THE $750M HANDSHAKE
By Kenneth Lovett

         ALBANY - Gov. Pataki and legislative leaders
         yesterday announced agreement on a stunning $3.5 billion
         health-care plan that will boost health-care salaries while
         hiking cigarette taxes by 39 cents a pack.

January 29, 2002
ALBANY BURNS US WITH SMOKING TAX
Steve Dunleavy

You - the leaders of our government - tell us smoking is
wrong, it's bad for health, and it can kill you.

       But now we have a situation where, if you don't smoke and
       don't pay more taxes, you're not being good to the state of
       New York.

       In other words, if we took any notice of medical evidence,
       none of us would smoke. But that would mean New York
       state would not get all the tax money it wants.

April 1, 2002
        SMOKERS LOOK ALL OVER
      TAR-NATION FOR CIG DEALS
        By MEGAN TURNER

        Internet sites and Indian reservation smoke
        shops expect a boost in tax-free cigarette sales when New
        York's higher tax takes effect Wednesday.

April 23, 2002
         NEW COUNCIL BILL WOULD
       BAR SMOKING IN ALL RESTAURANTS
         By Frankie Edozien

         Smokers, already bracing for another
         steep hike in the cigarette tax, may be forced out of all
         public dining rooms if a bill being introduced tomorrow by
         a Staten Island councilman passes.

         Republican James Oddo's plan would amend the city's
         Smoke-Free Air Act, which prohibits smoking in public
         areas such as mass transit, schools, movie theaters and
         restaurants with seats for more than 35 patrons.

His amendment would prohibit smoking in all restaurants,
regardless of size.

April 26, 2002
MIKE CLOSE TO $850M BUDGET BONUS FOR CITY
By Kirsten Danis and Kenneth Lovett

        Mayor Bloomberg is on the verge of winning $850 million in additional aid for the city, including $250
        million more for schools and a whopping cigarette tax hike, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said
        yesterday.

        The "likely" budget deal is shaping up as Bloomberg has signaled he's easing
        off his controversial plan to deeply slash city spending on schools -
        something Silver strongly opposes.

        A budget agreement would pave the way for some new revenue-raising
        measures sought by the mayor, including a new $1.42-per-pack cigarette
        tax, a 65-cent monthly phone fee, and increases in some parking fines.

"These are things that are likely to happen," Silver said.

May 6, 2002
Puff daddy
Neal Travis - Page Six

        IF Mayor Mike succeeds in raising the New York City tax
        on cigarettes to $1.50 a pack (from the present 8 cents),
        I'm quitting this job to become a bootlegger. Every smartie
        from the suburbs will be taking orders for cartons of
        smokes from fellow workers in the city and making a
        bundle. You can maybe police interstate cigarette
        smuggling, but intrastate - forget about it!

May 15, 2002
LITTLE TAX, BIG BITE

What's an extra 80 cents a month in new cell-phone taxes?

Given the state's grim financial picture post-9/11, who
wouldn't be glad to chip in such a "meaningless" sum?

         No doubt that's what lawmakers are betting on as they get
         set to pass (probably as early as today) a budget steeped in
         nuisance tax hikes - on cell phones, fishing and hunting,
         cigarettes, liquor and who knows what else.

The logic couldn't be more wrong.

May 19, 2002
CIG TAX MAY LURE BUTT-LEGGERS
Al Guart

        A new crop of cigarette smugglers is
        expected to blow into town if the proposed $1.50-a-pack
        tax hike is approved by the state and city this week.

        Some bootleggers have already tested the market, said
        William McMahon, assistant special agent in charge of the
        U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in New York.

"It's getting busier, that's for sure," he said. "It's going to be
a big money-maker."

May 21, 2002
        COUNCIL CHIEF BUTTS IN ON
       MIKE'S CIG-TAX DEAL
         By Frankie Edozien and Kenneth Lovett

         City Council Speaker Gifford Miller
         flexed his muscles yesterday, refusing to provide a routine
         authorization for a cigarette-tax hike negotiated by Mayor
         Bloomberg and Albany leaders.

         Sources said Miller is withholding approval of the tax as a
         strong-arm negotiating ploy to get goodies for the council in
         budget talks with the mayor.

         Albany officials said they won't approve the cigarette tax
         and some other measures for the city until they receive a
         formal request, called a "home-rule message," from the
         council.

June 15, 2002
TIGHTER EATERY SMOKING BAN DUE
By Fredric U. Dicker

        ALBANY - Smoking in all New York City
        restaurants will be banned under a sweeping new law
        expected to pass the state Legislature next week

June 23, 2002
EASING OFF ON KID-CIG SELLERS
By Kenneth Lovett

ALBANY - The state is moving toward easing sanctions against stores that sell cigarettes to minors,
The Post has learned.

        Final legislative passage is expected this week on a bill that
        reworks a 2-year- old law that convenience-store and
        bodega owners argued was too harsh and could force many
        to close.

June 30, 2002
THIEVES BUTT IN ON CIG DEALERS
By Erika Martinez and Todd Venezia

         On the eve of the city's massive cigarette-tax hike,
         thieves decided to bum themselves a last-minute drag - by
         stealing tens of thousands of dollars worth of smokes in two
         heists.

July 1, 2002
MAYOR'S SMOKE SIGNALS
By Frankie Edozien

        Now that Mayor Bloomberg has
        succeeded in making cigarette prices here among the
        highest in the nation, he's embarking on a not-so-subtle
        campaign to ensure the entire region follows the city's lead.

From noon today, cigarettes will be about $7 a pack with
the city taxes going up from 8 cents to $1.42.

July 2, 2002
CIGARETTE VENDORS GETTING $MOKED OUT
By Ikimulisa Sockwell-Mason and Gill Smith

         With new city taxes bringing the average price of a
         pack of cigarettes to a whopping $7, smokers yesterday
         began abandoning their usual deli and newsstand stops for
         cheaper sources - giving merchants a pain in the pocketbook.

July 2, 2002
Smoke tax burns them up
Page Six

        NOTABLE New Yorkers are fired up over Mayor
        Bloomberg's tax hike on cigarettes that has ushered in the
        era of $7-a-pack smokes. Food Network star and
        "Kitchen Confidential" author Anthony Bourdain described
        the "sin tax" as "shameful. It's the beginning of the end of
        civilization as we know it. I thought New York was the
        smoking section of the world, but pretty soon we're gonna
        end up like Aspen. [Smokers] are on the run. They're
        hunting us like dogs, and they're shooting the wounded."

August 6, 2002
STARTLING SMOKE $IGNALS
By David Seifman

        Cigarette sales here plummeted by half after the city hiked
        its tax by $1.42 a pack - but despite the decline in sales, tax
        revenues skyrocketed beyond projections, according to
        figures released yesterday.

        Officials concede that smokers can easily evade the tax by
        shopping outside the five boroughs, especially at tax-free
        Indian reservations, and on the Internet.

        Raj Patel, who has operated a newsstand on Park Row
        across from City Hall since 1989, said his customers are
        deserting him in droves.

August 10, 2002
BIZMEN RIP CIG BAN AS ASH-ININE
By Andy Geller and David Seifman

         Welcome to the new Prohibition. That's what bar and
          restaurant owners were fuming yesterday as they lit into
          Mayor Bloomberg's plan to ban smoking in city bars and
          eateries - and even at outdoor cafes.

August 10, 2002
BLOOMBERG'S BUTT BAN
Editorial

         Mayor Bloomberg makes no bones
         about the fact that when it comes to smoking, he's a
         crusader.

No surprise, then, that his health commissioner - Dr. Thomas
Frieden - has declared war on tobacco.

For the record, smoking is dumb.

But the mayor's proposed extension of the city's smoking
ban to all restaurants and bars strikes us as overkill.

         Though couched as an occupational-safety bill - aimed at
         protecting restaurant workers from the effects of
         second-hand smoke - the Bloomberg ban's real purpose
         clearly is to make it increasingly tough for those who choose
         to smoke to do so.

August 10, 2002
HEY, IT'S MY RIGHT TO PUFF IN PUBS
By Steve Dunleavy

        CONSENTING adults are allowed to
        make love in the house they own or rent - I don't see
        anything wrong with that.

        With that said, however, if they acted out their paradise on
        Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, they would be behind bars in the
        Tombs faster than you can say "Darling, it's the moment."

        Yet I can smoke on Fifth Avenue free and clear, but
        according to Mayor Bloomberg I cannot go to my
        gentlemen's pub, Langan's, to have a cigarette while I burst
        myself into oblivion with alcohol.

        But the governor of the pub pays a chunk of money to own
        the joint. How can you make love in a house you own or rent
        but you can't smoke in the place the man owns or rents?

August 10, 2002
BACK MIKE OR WE'RE LUNG GONE
By Braden Keil

GOOD for you, Mayor Bloomberg!

         As a reformed smoker, and a man who still enjoys a few
         cocktails, I applaud your proposal to ban smoking in bars and
         restaurants, or any other establishment where people enjoy
         breathing.

August 13, 2002
NYERS WANT SMOKE-FREE WORK: POLL
By Jamie Schram

         Nearly 75 percent of New Yorkers
         believe smoking should be snuffed out in the workplace,
         according to a new poll by an anti-smoking group.

         The NYC Coalition For a Smoke-Free City survey of 1,000
         citizens says that smoking kills more than 440,000 people
         nationwide each year, including 10,000 New Yorkers.

NYC C.L.A.S.H. Note - An anti-smoking organization commissioned this survey. Might as well hold up a survey conducted by the tobacco industry and call it definitive proof.

August 13, 2002
BEACH BUTT BAN
By David Seifman

        Anti-smoking advocates who convinced Mayor Bloomberg to
        propose a tough new law banning butts in bars, company cars and all
        restaurants have already zeroed in on their next targets: parks and
        beaches.

August 13, 2002
$250 MILLION IN CIGARETTE TAXES GO UNCOLLECTED
By Al Guart

         The Pataki administration is coming under fire for
         failing to collect up to $250 million a year in cigarette taxes
         from sales made by Native Americans and out-of-state
         sellers.

August 13, 2002
Drink, Bet --- But Don't Light Up!
Rich Lowry

       The case against the smoking prohibitions should... be based on
       freedom. Is getting together with friends to smoke over a meal
       such a noxious activity that it should -- like taking heroin or
       exposing yourself in public -- be banned outright?

       Are people so childish that they can't figure out for themselves
       whether to take "the risk" of sharing a cigarette over a
       cappuccino?

       Is the U.S. economy so restrictive that bartenders and waitresses
      who don't want to work in a smoky environmnet can't pick
      themselves up and get a job elsewhere?

      Do we really need the government to tell us, as the the New
       York law proposes, exactly where and in what circumstances
      ashtrays can be displayed?

The answers are all "no" -- unless you, like Bloomberg and so many
others across the country, have become a morality-free Puritan.

August 14, 2002
BLOOMBERG'S SMOKING COMMENTS DEEMED 'UNKIND'
By Andy Geller

Mayor Bloomberg isn't going to get smokers to quit by
calling them "stupid," experts said yesterday.

August 14, 2002
IF SMOKING GOES, SO DO WE, TOURISTS VOW
By Andy Geller and Marianne Garvey

         If Mayor Bloomberg's proposed smoking ban passes,
         European - and even American - tourists say they will bid
         adieu to the Big Apple.

August 14, 2002
Smokers Unite
Page Six

         JUST as higher taxes failed to force smokers to quit, the
         Draconian new restrictions Mayor Bloomberg proposes
         won’t stop nicotine freaks from lighting up. "Smokers have
         been oppressed for a long time, and they are very
         adaptable," pointed out one gravel-voiced source. Tourists
         who smoke will simply pick other cities to spend their
         vacations. Local smokers will entertain more at home. Some
         are looking into the possibility of private clubs. And if hotel
         lobbies are exempted, you can bet that smokers will be
         spending more time in them. "Bloomberg can inconvenience
         us and drive us underground," said one smoker, "but he can’t
         stop us."

August 15, 2002
        MAYOR'S CIGARETTE BAN SHOULD GO UP IN SMOKE
        By Jared Paul Stern
           Nightcrawler

        Mayor Bloomberg, however, seems intent on ushering in a
        second Prohibition with his anti-smoking crusade, turning the
        city into a Los Angeles-like playland whose inhabitants are
        treated like idiot children - a role they clearly relish, though
        we would not.

        Bloomberg may find himself back in the private sector again
        selling computers or whatever sooner than he thinks if he
        doesn't abandon this hopeless cause.

       After all, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a man who employed
       the martini as his chief aide in diplomacy, was swept into
       office on an anti-Prohibition platform in 1932, obliterating
       Herbert Hoover - also a rich businessman before he took
       office.

August 16, 2002
        SAVE OUR PUBS!
        Let workers and diners decide about smoking
        By Des O'Brien - owner of Langan's Bar & Restaurant in Manhattan

MAYOR Bloomberg has proposed newer and stiffer legislation concerning
"The Smoke-Free Air Act."

If passed, the bill will prevent smoking in all bars, taverns
and restaurants throughout New York City.

It's a bad bill - and unfair, to boot.

August 16, 2002
Fran fans flame for smokers
Page Six

        The social satirist [Fran Lebowitz] took on Mayor Bloomberg and his
        Draconian new propsals to ban smoking from all bars,
        restaurants, public parks and beaches, Wednesday on NY1's
        "Inside City Hall."

        "It's absurd. It's childish. It's peevesh . . . pious . . .
        anti-urban . . . anti-democratic . . . and hypocritical,"
        Lebowitz told host Andrew Kirtzman.

         "And I don't believe the data on second-hand smoke
         anyway. I'm 51 years old, and I have never known anyone
         who died from sitting next to someone smoking in a
         restaurant."

         Lebowitz ranted that whether she smokes or not - and
         where - is "none of Bloomberg's business." She added that
         the billionaire mayor had a "poor understanding of
         democracy" and criticized his paternalistic behavior: "Mayor
         Bloomberg is acting like my father . . . If he is my father, I
         hope I am in the will."

August 17, 2002
MOMMY MIKE STRIKES AGAIN
Editorial

When exactly did Mayor Mike turn into Mommy Mike?

        It turns out there is more - much more - to the mayor's latest
        anti-smoking plan than the ostensible workplace-safety
        initiative that he's touting.

Bloomberg wants to ban smoking literally everywhere within
four walls, save for private homes and apartments.

No doubt they'll be next.

August 18, 2002
POLITENESS POLICE COULD POUNCE ON POLS' EVERY PEEVE
By Linda Stasi

        ONE day your name is Bloomberg, and
        the next it's Caesar. One day you're elected mayor in a
        democratic election, and the next you're looking for
        something in a nice laurel wreath.

        Now comes Bloomy. First, he raised cigarette taxes so high
        that he's now the only person in the city with enough money
        left to buy a pack. Not that he would, because, as we all
        know, he doesn't smoke. Cigarettes. He did say he once
        enjoyed toking up a little weed, which is now probably
        cheaper than Marlboros.

        But even that wasn't enough to satisfy Little Caesar. Next
        he proposed banning smoking in all bars and restaurants to
        protect workers. Right.

       Buzzy O'Keefe, owner of the River Cafe and the Water
       Club, who spent bazillions on bar-area air purifying systems,
       said he's never had one bartender complain of smoke. I
       mean, if you hate smoke, why would you mix drinks for a
       living? That's like a cabby who fears traffic.

      Now, he and the world's most annoying human, anti-smoking
      Nazi Joe Cherner, want smoking banned in parks, beaches,
      and yes, even in company cars. How they'd find smoking
      criminals driving company cars is hard to imagine.

      Cherner says smoking should be added to the other "don'ts"
      in parks like alcohol, dogs and loud music. Like those are
      good bans? How about standing? Is walking on the beach
      still OK? Eating a doughnut?

August 18, 2002
Sheriff Mike Aims To Corral Smokers
Cindy Adams

Sheriff Mike aims to corrall smokers

         IT'S High Noon in this here frontier town of New York City.
         There's a warrant out for smokers. The sheriff's putting
         together a posse to nail them desperadoes.

Ain't nobody going into no saloon without holstering their
Marlboros or hanging up their Menthol Lites.

Let's all saddle up and git us a smoker.

Lordy, where is Gary Cooper when you need him?

         Never mind killers with box cutters and Saturday Night
         Specials. We're after the real bad hombres. The cigarette
         fiends.

August 18, 2002
MUCH LONELIER NIGHTS WITHOUT THE SMOKE
By Bridget Harrison

        "Where's the fun gone in this city?" I
        overheard a guy groaning in my deli last week. "If they're
        going to ban smoking in bars, can they at least put the
        cocaine back in Coca-Cola?"

"If I'd wanted to live somewhere uptight," he added, "I would
have moved to L.A."

I couldn't help but agree.

        Why is this hedonistic city - whose unofficial motto is
        "anything goes" - even considering a proposal to ban smoking
         in bars and possibly parks?

         When I transferred to New York almost two years ago, I
          fell in love with the city's open-minded attitude, especially
          compared to London.

August 18, 2002
BIG PACK OF NYPD PROS SMOKES OUT SMUGGLERS
By Al Guart

         The NYPD's newly formed Cigarette Interdiction
         Group has arrested seven bootleggers and seized 1,305
         cartons of untaxed smokes since the city hiked cigarette taxes July 2.

         CIG cops also confiscated one vehicle and executed one search
         warrant as of last week, said Deputy Inspector Michael Brooks,
         commander of the NYPD's Vice Enforcement Division.

         But so far, no big-time smuggling operations have been uncovered
         and organized-crime families, with a history of contraband
         smuggling, are not believed to be involved.

"It's all low-level, clandestine sales," Brooks said.