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June 17, 2004
        In Upstate County, Ashtrays and Beer Bottles Still Share the Bar
        By Michael Cooper

UTICA, N.Y. - The sign on the door says "Smoking.'' Seven cut-glass ashtrays sit on the copper-colored bar, all in plain sight. And when David Sprague strode into the cool, dark barroom here on Friday afternoon, the first thing he did after high-fiving a friend and ordering a bottle of Budweiser was to take out a Newport and light up.

The bar, the Varick, which is just down the street from the old brewery that now makes Saranac beer, is one of the 28 establishments in Oneida County that have received waivers from the state's smoking ban. No other county has issued as many, and that record, along with the efforts of two lawmakers to alter the state's ban to allow smoking in bars that install filter systems, has quietly made this upstate county along the Mohawk River the smoking capital of New York State.

"This is why I come here,'' said Mr. Sprague, 37, a motorcycle rider and chain smoker who said that before the Varick received its waiver he used to sneak into the kitchens of bars to smoke, brave sub-zero weather for cigarettes or even use chewing tobacco so he could stay indoors. "In the bar I'd chew Skoal, and ask for a cup to spit it out in.''

Under the state's smoking ban, which went into effect last July, most counties in New York were given the authority to draft their own guidelines for issuing waivers. Typically, establishments must show a financial loss above a threshold established by the county, usually 10 or 15 percent. With New York City and its surrounding counties covered by their own local smoking bans, the vast majority of waivers have been granted upstate. And Oneida County, where many local elected officials oppose the ban, tops the list, having issued more than a fifth of the waivers in the state.

But if local officials hoped that issuing waivers here would give a much-needed shot in the arm to struggling bars, the scene on the streets of Utica would suggest that a waiver doesn't necessarily translate into more customers. Even after the Varick threw open its doors to begin happy hour at 4 p.m. on Friday, a much bigger crowd was found just up the street at O'Donnell's - a bar without a waiver that still drew many smokers, who took breaks from their beers for cigarettes on the sidewalk.

One smoker outside O'Donnell's, Jeff Nelson, 36, said he was glad that the Utica area was leading the state in exemptions from the smoking ban, but he added that a sense of loyalty kept him drinking at O'Donnell's. "The number of bars in Utica exceeds the number of churches,'' Mr. Nelson said. "If you look at some neighborhoods, there's a bar on every corner. And people stay with their neighborhood bars.''

A statewide analysis of the smoking ban by the American Cancer Society shows that of the state's 65,000 bars and restaurants, only 132 have been granted waivers. And the society said that its data indicated that demand for the waivers appeared to be declining.

"After an initial flurry of complaints about the law, we've seen a significant drop in the number of establishments requesting waivers,'' Donald Distasio, the chief executive of the cancer society's eastern division, said in a statement.

But Oneida County remains a haven for the live-and-let-smoke crowd.

Joseph A. Griffo, the Oneida County executive and a nonsmoker, said that the county was simply trying to enforce the state law as it understood it. He said most waivers were granted to establishments that had demonstrated economic hardship as a result of the ban. And he added that there were no plans to market the county as a tourist destination for smokers.

"It wasn't the intent to try to say, 'Hey, come to our place, because there are bars that allow you to smoke,''' Mr. Griffo said. "We're not using it to try to draw people. We just felt that based on the conditions that were thrust upon us by the state, that we would do the best we could to deal with those.''

Mr. Griffo said that many in the county were upset that the state had simply passed the ban with little public input, leaving local governments to enforce it and interpret its waiver provisions. He said he would prefer a law less open to interpretation. And he noted that the county's position would have to be revisited soon, because the existing waivers - for saloons, clubs, businesses and a bowling alley - last one year.

The two state lawmakers representing Utica - State Senator Raymond A. Meier, a Republican, and Assemblywoman RoAnn M. Destito, a Democrat - have introduced legislation that would amend the ban to allow smoking in bars, bowling alleys and pool halls that install air purification devices.

Senator Meier, a nonsmoker and a legislator who voted for the ban, said he was moved to introduce his proposal to help tavern owners who say that the ban has devastated business, and to end the inconsistent way the law has been interpreted.

"You effectively have, in the 57 counties outside the city of New York, 57 different standards, and you can see that,'' he said. "This county has granted more waivers than any other county. Some have granted none. There's no uniformity of administering this waiver process and absolutely no predictability about it.''

State officials said it was unlikely that the air purification bill would pass this session. But the new proposal has alarmed antismoking advocates, who see it as an attempt to gut what they consider one of the great public health advances of recent times.

"The law is working as intended,'' said Michael Bopp, the American Cancer Society's director of advocacy for New York State. "The most severe cases, as determined by local officials, have availed themselves of the relief that is in the existing law - its waiver provisions. Now the state should move forward and let the law stand as it is.''

Indeed, the ban has its fans even in a bastion of legalized smoking like Oneida County.

Symeon's, a popular Greek restaurant near here, banned smoking before the state law passed. "It was a Friday night, and we were full; we had a waiting line,'' Symeon Tsoupelis, 33, the owner, recalled. "The smoking section was empty. So we said, 'No smoking tonight.' The next night, Saturday, the same thing. Our clientele dictated it.''

Mr. Tsoupelis said that he received two angry letters about the ban, but that within a year and a half the eight sets of regular customers who had sat in the smoking section were regulars once again. "They are all back,'' he said.

At the Varick, though, even a couple of nonsmokers said they were happy to be able to sit in a bar that allowed smoking again. "When I go to a bar, I know what I'm getting into,'' said Greg Stiefvater, 31, who said he quit smoking a few years ago.

May 12, 2004
        A City of Quitters? In Strict New York, 11% Fewer Smokers
        By Richard Perez-Pena

In the wake of huge tobacco tax increases and a ban on smoking in bars, the number of adult smokers in New York City fell 11 percent from 2002 to 2003, one of the steepest short-term declines ever measured, according to surveys commissioned by the city.

The surveys, to be released today, show that after holding steady for a decade, the number of regular smokers dropped more than 100,000 in a little more than a year, to 19.3 percent of adults from 21.6 percent. The decline occurred across all boroughs, ages and ethnic groups.

The surveys also found a 13 percent decline in cigarette consumption, suggesting that smokers who did not quit were smoking less. Like similar local and national polls, the surveys counted as smokers all people who said that they had smoked more than 100 cigarettes in their lives and that they now smoked every day or "some days."

City health officials and opponents of smoking said they believed that the decline was caused primarily by sharply higher tobacco taxes that went into effect in 2002, including an increase to $1.50 from 8 cents a pack in New York City.

The drop also coincided with a new city law banning smoking in bars, a new state law prohibiting it in restaurants and bars, and the Bloomberg administration's aggressive anti-smoking campaign, which has included advertising and the distribution of free nicotine patches to thousands of people.

"From what we've seen, we believe New York City experienced the steepest decline anywhere in one year," said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the city health commissioner.

Spokesmen for the largest cigarette makers said the higher taxes had certainly pushed down sales. They also said they did not know how much consumption had actually declined because they could not account for factors like smuggling to evade taxes and increased sales of lesser-known brands from smaller manufacturers.

"You have some people just saying, `I'm not going to pay that much' and quitting, but I seriously doubt" the figure of 11 percent, said John W. Singleton, a spokesman for the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.

Brendan McCormick, a spokesman for Philip Morris USA, said he had no reason to confirm or rebut the city's figures.

City officials said they expected skepticism from critics who will call the survey numbers an attempt by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's administration to validate his anti-tobacco policies, just as some people disputed the administration's reports showing no loss of business in bars after smoking was outlawed there.

"I take a pessimistic view of their figures because I suspect they're geared to supporting their agenda, but in this case, I'm sure we all hope that their stats are correct and less people are smoking," said Councilman Tony Avella of Queens, who has clashed with the mayor on tobacco control policies.

Administration officials said that the 2002 and 2003 telephone surveys were conducted for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene by Baruch College researchers using identical methods and that the random dialing approach and questions were the same as those used in annual surveys by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They also point out that the city polls used very large samples, 10,000 people each time, which pollsters say makes the results more authoritative. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 1 percentage point, officials said.

Other evidence also suggests a sharp drop in smoking, including lower city and state tobacco tax revenue, sales of products like nicotine patches and gum, and anecdotal reports of greater enrollment in smoking cessation programs.

"New York did the perfect trifecta that no one has attempted before — raising taxes very steeply, making it harder to smoke indoors, and promoting cessation, so you would expect a dramatic result," said Dr. Steven A. Schroeder, a professor of health and health care at the University of California at San Francisco and a former president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which finances health care research. "Most cities and states aren't doing much of anything."

Legislation to raise the minimum legal age for smoking to 19 from 18 in New York State has been proposed. Yesterday, when asked about the proposal, Mr. Bloomberg said: "I certainly would not be opposed to raising the age. You know, I've done what I think I can to discourage smoking in the city."

According to the Centers for Disease Control, adult smoking nationwide declined steadily from the first surgeon general's warning in the 1960's to the early 1990's, then held steady, though it continued to decline among teenagers. Annual federal surveys by the Centers for Disease Control show the adult rate, both nationally and in New York State, steady at about 23 percent for several years, through 2002, the most recent year for which numbers are available.

For a decade, surveys showed the rate in the city almost unchanged. The most recent surveys show greater declines among people who federal and city statistics indicate are less able to afford higher prices: the youngest adults, Bronx residents, women, and blacks and Hispanics.

"This city survey shows what can happen if you attack it really hard," said Russell Sciandra, director of the Center for a Tobacco-Free New York, an advocacy group. "It is not at all surprising. This is what we said all along would happen if you sharply raised the cost of smoking."

New York State raised its tax on cigarettes from 56 cents a pack to $1.11 in March 2000, and on April 1, 2002, lifted it to $1.50, one of the highest tobacco taxes in the country. New York City raised its tax on July 1, 2002, from 8 cents to $1.50, by far the highest local levy in the country. The federal tax rose to 34 cents from 24 cents in January 2000, and to 39 cents on Jan. 1, 2002.

So the combined city, state and federal levies on a pack stood at 88 cents at the end of 1999, $1.53 at the end of 2001, and $3.39 by mid-2002.

A new city law took effect on April 1, 2003, prohibiting smoking in bars and eliminating limited exceptions to the previous ban on smoking in restaurants. A statewide ban in restaurants and bars took effect on July 24.

The city conducted its 2002 survey from May to July, and the 2003 canvass from April to November.

In 2002 and 2003, taxed cigarette sales declined about 25 percent statewide and about 40 percent in the city, according to government officials. Some of that drop reflects increased efforts to evade higher taxes, like Internet sales and bootlegging. In the city today, a name-brand pack of 20 cigarettes typically retails for $7 to $8, but nontaxed packs smuggled into the city can be bought illegally on many street corners for about $5.

Health researchers, economists and cigarette makers agree that some of the fall in tax revenue represents a real decline in consumption, but they disagree on the extent. Studies have shown that a 10 percent increase in the cost of cigarettes produces about a 4 percent drop in use.

"New York City is almost a laboratory experiment in what happens when prices get so high people just refuse to pay it," said Mr. Singleton, of R. J. Reynolds. "There's a real economic incentive here for people to break the law."

In 2002, drugstore sales of antismoking products — mostly nicotine patches and gum — rose 3.3 percent nationally and 9.7 percent in New York State, according to Information Resources Inc., a company that tracks drug sales. In 2003, as the products' prices rose, sales dropped 8.7 percent nationally. Sales fell less sharply in New York, by 7.5 percent, or about 50,000 units, but those figures do not include the 35,000 nicotine patch kits the city sent to smokers free last year.

Health researchers say that smoking cuts short the lives of about one-third of long-term smokers, by an average of about 14 years. Dr. Frieden, the city health commissioner, said reducing the smoking population by 100,000 people, if the change is permanent, "means that there will be at least 30,000 fewer premature deaths."

April 25, 2004
        So a Guy Walks Into a Bar With an Air Monitor...
        By Richard Perez-Pena

It takes a toll, being the scientist who has to measure the air quality in bar after bar around the East and West Coasts, wearily checking for smoke particles between beers.

"You go to a bar, have a beer, go to another bar," said Mark Travers, a 28-year-old doctoral candidate at the University at Buffalo, part of the State University of New York. He carried his sophisticated monitoring equipment in a shoulder case.

"By the end of the night, you aren't so motivated to pick up and go on to the next bar," he said. "Occupational hazard. I'm not really complaining, 'Oh, I have to go bar-hopping again.' But I definitely don't go in to work early like I used to."

Nonetheless, after months of arduous research, Mr. Travers and other scientists at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo have reached a significant conclusion about indoor air in Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's New York, a year after the city banned smoking in all bars and restaurants: The atmosphere in them has, on average, less than one-tenth as many fine particles and other harmful chemicals as in cities where smoking is still allowed. When they looked only at bars, and only late at night when the indoor haze was thickest, the contrast to New York City was much sharper.

While the results he gathered may not be terribly surprising, the study, financed in part by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, an antismoking group, put a numerical stamp on the still-new experience of walking into a bar past midnight and being able to see across the room, of hoisting a pint or two and not having your eyes sting or your hair and clothes smell of the experience the next morning.

"It still seems really strange to be in the bar at 1 a.m., when I'd say 60 percent of the people are at least part-time smokers, and not see that cloud," said William Schumacher, a bartender at Kenn's Broome Street Bar in SoHo. "I always thought the smoke didn't bother me, but I go home feeling better these days."

In a sampling of Manhattan taverns Mr. Travers visited last Saturday night, the average concentration of those tiny particles, soot, was 25 micrograms per cubic meter of air, about the same as he had found a few weeks earlier in Buffalo. Health experts say that number is not particularly good - the city has measured lower concentrations at the mouth of the Holland Tunnel at rush hour - and reflects New York City's general air pollution problems.

But it is a far cry from cities where smoking is still allowed. In dozens of bars and restaurants in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Hoboken, N.J., Mr. Travers found an average particulate concentration of almost 300. That number includes measurements taken at places that are primarily restaurants, and some readings taken before the nights got busy. In bars visited late at night, the particulate pollution in other cities often topped, 400, 600, even 1,000 in one case.

California began the effort to ban smoking in bars back in 1998. But for all its health-conscious image, the trend-setting left coast did not match New York in Mr. Travers' findings, for the simple reason that people there cheated. In some Los Angeles night spots, he found smokers defying the ban, and an average particulate level of 94.

In addition to particulates, second-hand smoke contains carbon monoxide and a group of carcinogens called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAH. Mr. Travers measured carbon monoxide and found significant, but less striking, differences between smoking and nonsmoking businesses. He did not test for PAH, which studies show varies in direct proportion to particulates.

Several studies have shown that secondhand smoke poses a risk of cancer and heart disease, while a few others - the ones cited by opponents of smoking bans - have not shown any link. Inhaling fine particles in large amounts, from whatever source, can cause many health problems.

The numbers collected by Mr. Travers show striking variation, in ways that both sides in the ongoing debate might seize on to support their arguments. In Albany, tavern owners and some legislators are proposing exemptions to the ban that New York State passed last year, for bars with good air-flow systems.

The ESPN Zone at Baltimore's Inner Harbor presented one extreme early one evening. Families with children having dinner sat at many of the tables, and there were only a few smokers in a half-full, modern room with high ceilings and gale-force ventilation. The particulate level was 70 - far below most other smoking places, but still almost triple the New York City average.

A few hours later, at the Horse You Came In On bar in Fells Point, a low-ceilinged old Baltimore place packed with hard-drinking people in their 20's listening to a band playing Cheap Trick covers, it was 526. And that was mild compared with the upstairs bar the next night at Millie & Al's, in the Adams Morgan section of Washington, D.C., where the particulate level hit 1,119, or about 45 times as high as a typical New York City place.

Even the nonsmoking places varied, depending on factors like the presence of a kitchen (stoves and ovens produce some particulates), and the general level of air pollution in the city.

Tagging along with Mr. Travers and talking with patrons also turned up a wide range of attitudes. Some nonsmokers said they did not mind smoking and opposed any infringement on the right to smoke, while some smokers said they would be happy to see a ban.

People said that smoking prohibitions had subtly altered their social equations, encouraging them or discouraging them from going out to bars, depending on their tastes, and causing nicotine refugees to gather out on the sidewalks.

"I believe in personal accountability, and I know what I'm doing to myself, and this is one of my happiest moments," Hafeez Rajii, a visiting New Yorker, said between drags on a Parliament in Garrett's, a bar in the Georgetown section of Washington.

A number of smokers said they approved of nonsmoking laws, and even saw a benefit to themselves. "I smoke a lot less now because of it," said Matt O'Brien, 26, who sat with friends last weekend at the Heartland Brewery Union Square in Manhattan.

The ban has even changed the pickup scene, according to Mr. Schumacher, the bartender. "There are lot of guys you see in here, not smoking,'' he said, "but as soon as they see a pretty girl go out there for a smoke, they step out and light up."

April 9, 2004
        Rejecting Constitutional Claims, Judge Upholds Smoking Bans
        By Susan Saulny

A federal judge in Manhattan has upheld the smoking bans that the city and state enacted last year.

In a widely expected decision released yesterday, Judge Victor Marrero of the United States Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that the bans do not unduly burden smokers' rights to freedom of speech, association, travel or any other protected privileges.

Audrey Silk, the founder of the group that filed the lawsuit against the bans last July - NYC Clash, Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment - said yesterday that it had not yet decided whether to appeal.

"Of course we're disappointed, because we feel we presented a very strong case with a lot of documents that refute the common perceptions," Ms. Silk said.

The group contended that the amount of smoke bartenders and waiters are exposed to is limited, and so not enough of a health threat to necessitate a ban, Ms. Silk said. Summing up that point, she added: "The dose makes the poison."

But the court did not agree with the group's move to discredit scientific evidence about the harmful effects of secondhand smoke, or any of its other points.

The group also held that the city's Smoke Free Air Act and provisions of the state's Clean Indoor Air Act are variously vague and overly restrictive, violating the First and 14th Amendments.

Judge Marrero held that the group's First Amendment arguments had a "critical flaw" - "the premise that association, speech, and general social interaction cannot occur or cannot be experienced to the fullest without smoking."

Clash suggested that the ban would deter travel to and within the state, eating away at the liberty to move freely, a right that the 14th Amendment states cannot be abridged without due process of law.

But the judge wrote that he doubted the bans would play any material role in smokers' travel decisions. "Smokers remain free to travel as they please, to no less degree than nonsmokers, and may still smoke while they drive their automobiles or walk in the streets," he said.

The city's chief lawyer on the case, Ave Maria Brennan, an assistant corporation counsel, said in a statement that she felt the court "reached the correct decision."

Thomas R. Frieden, the city's commissioner of health, said in a statement: "The Smoke Free Air Act was enacted to protect workers from the adverse health impact of secondhand smoke, and we are pleased with the Federal District Court's decision upholding its constitutionality."

March 29, 2004
        Bars and Restaurants Thrive Amid Smoking Ban, Study Says
        By Andrea Elliott

The city's restaurants and bars have prospered despite the smoking ban, with increases in jobs, liquor licenses and business tax payments since the law took effect a year ago, according to a study to be released by the city today.

The study also found that air pollution levels had decreased sixfold in bars and restaurants after the ban went into effect, and that New Yorkers had reported less secondhand smoke in the workplace.

"It really confirms that New York City is now a healthier place to work, eat and drink," said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, commissioner of the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which produced the report along with two other city departments and the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

Critics say the report is flawed because it does not separate bar and restaurant statistics, whereas bars have suffered more from the ban, critics contend. The increase in tax payments and jobs must be weighed against the restaurant industry's emergence from the post-9/11 recession, said David Rabin, president of the New York Nightlife Association.

"There's no separation between Starbucks and McDonald's and the nightclub and bar industry," Mr. Rabin said. "Many restaurant and bar workers have had to take second jobs to make up for lost tip income."

Data from the city's Department of Finance shows that the money spent in New York bars and restaurants has increased, the report states: from April 2003 to January, the city collected about $17.3 million in tax payments from bars and restaurants, a rise of about $1.4 million over the same period a year earlier.

The payments were for the general corporation tax and the unincorporated business tax, and are usually collected quarterly from restaurants and bars. The rates have not changed since before April 2003.

An average of 164,000 people were employed in restaurants and bars in 2003, the highest number in at least a decade. Since the smoking ban took effect last March 30, employment in bars and restaurants has risen by 10,600 jobs, taking into account seasonal fluctuations, according to the report.

The number of the city's bars and restaurants - roughly 20,000 - remained about the same in the third quarter of 2002 as in the third quarter of 2003. Last year, the New York State Liquor Authority issued 1,416 new liquor licenses to New York City businesses, compared with 1,361 the previous year, the study reports.

But the report does not reflect the harsh realities faced by the city's bars, which catered to a smoking-heavy crowd before the ban, said bar merchants, who questioned why bar data was not separate in the report. The city's answer is that data that separates bars from restaurants is not reliable, said Sam Miller, a spokesman for the Department of Finance.

"We'd be guessing, and we probably wouldn't be as accurate," Mr. Miller said.

To try to demonstrate where the report fell short, David McWater offered his own experience: he owns five taverns in Manhattan, including Nice Guy Eddie's and Julep in the East Village. Last year, he said, his businesses experienced, on average, a 1 percent increase in sales, compared with the usual 8 to 15 percent sales increase enjoyed by the bars in previous years.

"In the old days a smoker might spend six hours in my bar drinking and talking to friends," said Mr. McWater, 38. "Now he's spending four hours in the bar and two hours outside smoking. I can't serve people outside. Every time a smoker goes outside, that's lost revenue."

The study also found that 97 percent of the more than 22,000 establishments inspected by the city from April 2003 through February were found in compliance with the new law and that 150,000 New Yorkers reported less exposure to secondhand smoke in their workplaces since the ban took effect.

The Health Department conducted an air quality survey of a sampling of bars and restaurants in August 2002 and returned to the locations in May 2003, after the ban took effect, and noted substantial improvement.

March 9, 2004
        A Cultural History Faces Stringent Smoking Laws
        By Corey Kilgannon

Of the roughly 20 hookah bars in New York City, about half are clustered along a short stretch of Steinway Street in Astoria, Queens, known as Little Egypt. Here in the hazy cafes, owned mostly by Egyptian immigrants, men smoke fruit-flavored tobacco called shisha through water pipes called hookahs as they banter in Arabic, play chess or backgammon, or simply pass the day in a fragrant fog.

But big trouble has come to Little Egypt, causing the kind of jitters more often associated with the cigarette habit. Hookah shop owners say the city's Health Department has begun sending agents to Steinway Street to aggressively enforce the stringent smoking laws that took effect last spring - laws the owners had thought they could quietly sidestep.

Ali Mohamed and Moustafa Elgohry, Egyptian immigrants who own a shisha cafe on Steinway Street near 25th Avenue, said they had received six summonses from the city in recent months, one resulting in a $1,200 fine. "We charge $4 for a smoke," Mr. Mohamed said. "Do you know how many shishas I have to sell to make that back?"

When the smoking ban first took effect a year ago, the two men said, they received sporadic summonses, several of which were dismissed by the Health Department's administrative tribunal. "But they've been very aggressive lately," Mr. Mohamed said. "Two weeks ago, they sent their guys to every shisha shop on the block. It's harassment."

Mr. Elgohry said enforcement agents had warned customers in his shop that they, too, would be ticketed if caught smoking. "They've scared some of our customers away," Mr. Mohamed said. "We're hard-working people trying to earn a living. I worked 20 years driving a cab for the money to open this store. Now they're trying to close us down."

The owners have enlisted the help of their councilman, Peter Vallone Jr., who wrote to the city's health commissioner last week arguing that the shisha cafes are no different than the cigar bars that qualify for a legal exemption from the smoking laws. Mr. Vallone said that city law allows smoking if the bars draw at least 10 percent of their revenue from the sale of tobacco. Most of the shisha café owners say they earn well over half their revenue from tobacco.

But a Health Department official said yesterday that the cigar-bar exemption applied only to places that sell alcohol.

Elliott S. Marcus, an assistant commissioner, said, "Hookah establishments may apply for an exemption as a tobacco bar - which by definition is an establishment where the sale of food is incidental, at least 40 percent of gross receipts are from the sale of alcohol, and at least 10 percent of gross receipts are from the sale of tobacco products or the rental of humidors.

"To date, the department has not received any tobacco bar applications from hookah establishments," he said, adding that they were therefore subject to the city smoking ban.

The cafe owners said they would not serve alcohol because most of their customers were Muslims, who do not drink.

"I've asked that the city give them exclusion from the smoking laws because they fit into a cigar bar exemption," Mr. Vallone said last week. "The only difference is that they don't serve alcohol, but should they be punished for that?"

The cafe owners contend that hookah smoking is a vital part of their culture. And their shops were instrumental, they say, in transforming what was a downtrodden block several years ago into a bustling commercial strip where shops stay open late at night and people mill about on the street the way they do in downtown Cairo.

Many of the cafes draw their largest crowds well past midnight. Egyptians, Algerians, Tunisians and others, mostly men, sit next to tall ornate water pipes, sipping juices, coffee or strong tea between puffs. Some like the tobacco dipped in molasses or flavored with fruits or spices. A full pipe usually costs $4 and can last an hour.

Muhamed Bashir, who owns a restaurant on Steinway Street that offers shisha smoking, said: "We get customers from all over - Long Island, Connecticut, New Jersey. But they would not come if we didn't have smoking."

City agents have inspected his shop three times recently, he said, adding, "Luckily, no one was smoking when they came, but they said, 'If anyone smokes hookah, we're going to give them a ticket.' "

Esam Adly, the manager of the Egyptian Cafe, which opened four years ago on Steinway Street, said he had received three summonses in recent months. Two were dismissed after hearings and the third will be heard later this month, he said.

"New York has many different cultures, and smoking shisha is part of our culture," he said, staring nervously into an open-air oven baking small coals to a rosy glow so they could be placed on hookahs to keep the shisha burning. "It's an Arabic tradition, and it's our whole business. We couldn't stay open without it."

Muhammed Darwish, 36, a livery driver, sat last week in the Egyptian Coffee Shop. "This is our culture," he said. "Smoking brings our people together. It's not like a bar. People only come here if they want to smoke, or don't mind others smoking. Customers would rather smoke here than at home, around their wife and children."

Next to him was another hookah smoker, Khalid Kairouani, 38, a former Olympic runner from Morocco who has won three United States championships in the 3,000-meter category. He exhaled a thick plume of aromatic smoke toward the No Smoking signs on the wall. The owner, Labib Salama, said he put the signs up because cigarettes were banned in the shop.

"Shisha is the reason people come here," said Mr. Salama, 50, an Egyptian immigrant who recently called many fellow cafe owners to his shop to plan strategy and choose a lawyer to help them fight the city crackdown.

"If the city stops shisha smoking, many shops here will close," Mr. Salama said. "We brought this block back to life. Does the city want it to be dead again?"

February 14, 2004
        Gladly Taking the Blame for Health in New York City
        By Jennifer Steinhauer

With the exception of the police commissioner, the heads of city agencies tend to be virtually invisible to the public, trotted out for the occasional news conference with the mayor while doing most of their business behind closed doors.

But Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the city's health commissioner, has turned out to be an active policy advocate among the city's department heads, the outspoken architect of some of the Bloomberg administration's more controversial policies.

Although Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is more closely associated with a law that bans smoking citywide, the legislation was actually developed by Dr. Frieden, who was also given responsibility for helping to push it through the City Council.

Since Dr. Frieden was appointed in 2002, the Bloomberg administration has also changed the city's restaurant inspection process and increased the fines, infuriating the industry so much that its trade group sued the city.

In some ways, Dr. Frieden, who is 43 and is married with one child, is inheriting a tradition of active health commissioners that retreated during the Giuliani administration, when public health was a back-burner issue.

"The city health department has a long history of activist health commissioners going back to the turn of the century," said Dr. Mark Chassin, the chairman for the department of health policy at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Although Mayor Bloomberg has taken both the credit and the grief for the ban on smoking, the restaurant fines, and the opposition to a bill on lead paint hazards, insiders on each issue know that the health commissioner is the one who developed these policies.

And while Dr. Frieden is highly respected among Mr. Bloomberg's senior staff members, many of them also grumble that his policies have come at a political cost to the mayor. "The smoking ban would never have happened without him," said one administration official.

Dr. Frieden offered no apologies for his eager enforcement of the law. "It has been said that public health programs are inherently unpopular because they improve the health of a large number of people, but many of them disturb a small number of very vocal people," he said. "We have done a terrific thing, by improving the way we inspect restaurants. We now have cleaner food, but the restaurants that are getting fined are angry."

About the smoking law, he said: "In public health there is no pro-TB or pro-Ebola lobby, but there is a pro-tobacco lobby. And they spend $2 billion on marketing and promotion. Everyone knows that secondhand smoke kills. It would be a pretty sorry case if a health commissioner didn't support this law. The surprise is that the mayor supports it. But I would be happy to be attacked for it."

Dr. Frieden's health goals have expanded greatly in his current role, with interests as varied as racial disparities in health care, colon cancer, and helping new mothers care for their infants. His pet cause, though, is ending tobacco use, a goal he repeats in interviews, in his letter to New Yorkers on the health department's Web site, and in conversations with doctors. "In terms of tobacco control, we're not done," he said. "Seven out of 10 people want to quit. What we know is the health care system doesn't do as good a job as it could in helping them."

Dr. Frieden, who is an obsessive consumer of data, also decided that the city's restaurant inspections were not focusing on the things that actually cause people to get sick. So he changed the category of many violations and increased fines substantially; the minimum fine doubled to $200. Inspection failure rates doubled last year, although they are ticking down again.

Doug Griebel, the president of the New York City chapter of the New York State Restaurant Association, said of Dr. Frieden's changes: "There are too many inconsistencies in the inspections, and fines have quadrupled, which serves no purpose other than to raise money." Mr. Griebel, who owns four Manhattan restaurants, complained, as have other owners, that violations that could be addressed on the spot before now automatically result in fines.

Dr. Frieden still enjoys dining out on sushi, and said he was just fulfilling a mission. "Public health has one underlying philosophy, and one underlying methodology," he said. "The underlying philosophy is social justice, and methodology is using data to improve decisions."

February 11, 2004
        Smoke if You Have Money? Hardly, Mayor Says
        By Jennifer Steinhauer

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is once again slipping into the quicksand created by his citywide smoking ban - not over its existence, but over perceived inconsistencies in enforcing it.

The troubles for the mayor began last week when The New York Times reported on a black-tie dinner on Jan. 15 at the St. Regis Hotel where Wall Street big shots puffed away on cigars within smelling distance of the mayor. Mr. Bloomberg, whose ban on smoking extends to every restaurant, bar and hotel in the city, has urged New Yorkers to tattle on those who break the law. The city has issued dozens of summonses.

Mr. Bloomberg has since said he did not see smoking - or at least he did not remember seeing smoking - at the St. Regis event, and yesterday he became annoyed during an interview on WLIB when he was asked about it again.

"It's somebody trying to make a story," Mr. Bloomberg said. "The bottom line is, I don't really remember anybody smoking. Most people weren't, and if there were some people in the corner smoking, they were smoking. What do you want me to do, call the cops?"

Well, yes, many people indeed would have liked to see Mr. Bloomberg force the wealthy revelers at the St. Regis to put their cigars out, because that in fact is what the law dictates. The problem for Mr. Bloomberg is that he has more than once given the appearance of having a different standard for upper-class New Yorkers - some of whom have taken to puffing in front of the mayor with the explicit goal of taunting him - than he does for bar hoppers around the rest of the city.

"Bloomberg is a clear example of 'Do As I Say, Not As I Do,' " said Tricia Romano, who has a nightlife column in The Village Voice. "The places he parties are high-society hangouts - they aren't going to get complaints from the neighbors. And I'd be shocked if a gang of rich socialites were huddled outside smoking cigarettes and driving the neighbors crazy with the noise."

This is not the first time this has happened to Mr. Bloomberg. Last summer, police officers gave tickets to people drinking beer in public at a July 4 party on the beach in the Rockaways, but allowed people to drink wine in Central Park during a free concert by the New York Philharmonic the following Monday.

When asked about the discrepancy at a news conference, Mr. Bloomberg said that the drinking near the beach led to drowning, adding: "I don't know of anybody that's drowned in a tuba recently."

February 6, 2004
        If Only for a Night, Wall St. Fallen Idol Is One of the Boys
        By Landon Thomas Jr.

Richard A. Grasso is no longer a member of Wall Street's most exclusive public club, the New York Stock Exchange, but he still belongs to its most secretive society, Kappa Beta Phi.

The sole purpose of the society, which claims more than 250 of Wall Street's executives and former chiefs, is to allow some of the biggest egos in finance to poke fun at themselves and to induct new members in a campy rite that dates back to 1929.

At its annual black-tie dinner on Jan. 15 at the St. Regis Hotel, Mr. Grasso was not only in attendance, but the butt of a series of jokes about his $139.5 million pay package as chairman and chief executive of the exchange. Bankers who were there said he took the ribbing in good humor.

Like the best of clubs, Kappa Beta has special privileges — lifetime membership, which Mr. Grasso can now appreciate, and, for the broader membership, even the leeway to break a municipal law or two.

Laughing with Mr. Grasso were several former directors of the stock exchange who granted him that pay and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, perhaps the biggest titan in the room with a net worth of $4 billion. Though the mayor famously banned smoking in public places in New York, several Wall Street executives enjoyed an illicit puff of the occasional cigar in his presence.

"Sure, there were cigars passed out," said Alan C. Greenberg, the former chief executive of Bear Stearns, who is known as Ace. "And some people even had the guts to smoke them — including me."

Smoking in a public room is not allowed at the St. Regis, according to hotel officials.

But such legal niceties were the details for another day: Wall Street's titans had gathered for a night of racy fun.

Among the inductees, or "neophytes" in club parlance, was Diana L. Taylor, the banking superintendent for the Pataki administration and the companion of Mr. Bloomberg.

Which could have been why Mr. Bloomberg, whose Wall Street bona fides go back to his days as a hot-shot salesman on the Salomon Brothers trading desk, was in the audience.

Mr. Grasso did not return calls to his lawyer seeking comment. Mayor Bloomberg also declined to comment. Ms. Taylor could not be reached for comment last night.

January 29, 2004
        U.S. Arrests 10 as Members of Big Cigarette Smuggling Ring
        By Eric Lichtblau

WASHINGTON — The cartons of cigarettes carried familiar brand names like Marlboro and Marlboro Lights, and would fetch as much as $70 each in New York City.

But in reality, federal officials charged Wednesday, many of the cigarettes were counterfeits, made in Asia for as little as $2 a carton and then smuggled into the United States.

In what they described as a major dent in the multibillion-dollar black market in tobacco products, officials on Wednesday arrested 10 people in five states who the authorities said had been running the biggest tobacco import smuggling ring in American history. The defendants are accused of smuggling more than 100 million cigarettes into the United States.

Among the prime destinations of the black-market cigarettes, officials said, were Los Angeles, western Texas and New York State, including an unidentified Indian reservation in upstate New York.

The victims, officials said, were not only the tobacco companies whose products were counterfeited but also the federal government, which estimates that cigarette smuggling costs it more than a billion dollars a year in lost fees and revenue, and New York, California and Texas, which together were cheated out of at least $8 million.

The smugglers operated "a vast criminal conspiracy" and "sought to exploit the U.S. economy" by evading taxes and duty fees, said Michael T. Dougherty, who oversees immigration and customs enforcement operations for the Department of Homeland Security.

Federal officials identified the leader of the ring as Jorge Abraham, 34, of Sunland Park, N.M., who is charged in a 92-count indictment with conspiracy to smuggle cigarettes, wire fraud, money laundering and other offenses. Nine other people, in New York, Texas, Florida and California, were also arrested, and officials said an undisclosed number had been charged in indictments that remain under seal.

If convicted, Mr. Abraham faces not only a prison term but also fines and restitution of about $30 million and forfeiture of his $545,000 house in New Mexico. A telephone call to his lawyer on Wednesday was not returned.

Lou Garthe, who oversees tobacco enforcement at the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said a three-year investigation had found that traffickers under Mr. Abraham's direction had used two main methods to smuggle cigarettes, in a scheme that began in 2000 or earlier.

In some cases, Mr. Garthe said, they bought low-grade cigarettes in China, Thailand and elsewhere, smuggled the cartons into the United States as boxes of toys or plastic products, and sold them on the black market as brand-name cigarettes. In other cases, he said, they imported authentic brand-name cigarettes into American ports but evaded taxes and duty fees by falsely declaring that the products were bound for Mexico.

Federal officials said that in the course of the investigation, they seized $18.1 million worth of counterfeit and brand-name cigarettes bound for the black market.

January 24, 2004
        Dare to Smoke? The Guy Behind You Is the Mayor
        By Sabrina Tavernise

It would have been a delicate question under any circumstance. But the surprise presence of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg turned it into a New York farce.

At a table in the plush, quiet bar of The Mark hotel on the Upper East Side, a woman asked fellow drinkers if they minded her lighting a cigarette. She leaned from a perch on an armchair toward well-dressed diners at four tables near her. In the dimly lighted room, where about seven small groups sat sipping wine and cocktails, most guests simply muttered that they were not opposed.

But Richard Medley, out for a drink with friends, spotted an important reason to say no. He had watched as Mr. Bloomberg entered the bar earlier. The city's antismoking champion had taken his seat behind the unsuspecting smoker.

"She turned to me and said, 'Do you mind if I smoke,' " Mr. Medley recalled. "I said, 'I don't mind, but he might,' " he said, loudly enough for the room to enjoy the joke, and he pointed to Mr. Bloomberg.

The woman, dressed in jeans and a sweater, swung around to face him, and began to laugh. She then asked him if he minded her smoking. Mr. Bloomberg, laughing, expanded the joke. It was the bar owners who would be offended, he said. They stood to pay a fine for her indulgence.

"It was a very New York thing," Mr. Medley said. "It was all in very good humor."

Mr. Bloomberg remained unfazed. He even offered the woman a lesson in how to quit. Some time later, in a charm offensive, he bought her table drinks. The guests laughed at the joke. But in a New York minute, the room went back to nursing their drinks. The woman, ultimately, was not won over.

"I don't think she was going to follow his advice," Mr. Medley said. "I think she just dropped the subject."

A spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg declined to comment on the incident.

Yesterday morning, Mr. Bloomberg gave a glimpse into the pressures of being the city's smoking conscience. On his radio show on WABC-AM, he was asked by a caller whether he would crack down on energy waste, like air-conditioners that blast in stores in the summer.

"I took on the smoking," he said. "I'm not sure I want to take on air-conditioning this year.''

January 18, 2004
        Mayor and Editor, Fussing Over Fuming
        By Jennifer Steinhauer

It would seem that Vanity Fair, the breathless chronicle of all things glamorous and shiny about New York and Hollywood, would be in love with the 108th mayor of New York City.

For years, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg seemed to embody the same qualities found in many of the magazine's subjects — a love of fancy restaurants, deep pockets for the charity circuit and real estate of considerable size in requisite tropical, European and urban locations.

Further, the editor of Vanity Fair, Graydon Carter, runs in similar social and professional circles as Mr. Bloomberg did in his pre-mayoral, media mogul days, before he began choosing meatloaf on Staten Island over cheese courses at expensive Midtown restaurants. The two share a certain number of accouterments: Manhattan town houses, finely tailored suits and fat Rolodexes. Each has been known to be long on lady friends.

They were, in Mr. Carter's estimation, friends. But that was before Mr. Bloomberg imposed an almost total ban on indoor smoking in public places in New York City, infuriating Mr. Carter, who enjoyed lighting up in restaurants, bars and, according to three summonses he has received from city inspectors, his office at the sleek West 42nd Street headquarters of Condé Nast. Mr. Carter has called the enforcement of the new law harassment, among other things.

"It is an important issue," said Mr. Carter. "It is about freedom and your own civil liberties, and it is about the city. This is not Denver, it is not Seattle, it is a big rough turbine that is fueled by cigarette smoke and food and liquor. People want to go out at night. If your best friend smokes, it makes it very awkward."

Over the last six months, Vanity Fair has been ripping into Mr. Bloomberg on almost a monthly basis, vexing the mayor's staff and angering Mr. Bloomberg at times, too. In September, the magazine ran a lengthy profile of Mr. Bloomberg that was far from flattering, referring to him as "waiflike."

Mr. Carter has also devoted no fewer than three editor's letters to criticizing the mayor. In the latest, in the February issue of the magazine, Mr. Carter says the mayor is "like a husband who returns home after the honeymoon and announces to his new bride that he has decided that henceforth they will be vegans."

For that same issue now on newsstands, Mr. Carter commissioned an article by Christopher Hitchens in which Mr. Hitchens chronicled his minor crime spree throughout the city — feeding pigeons, smoking in a luxury car — painting Mr. Bloomberg's New York as something just short of a police state.

"I did it because I thought it would be fun journalism," Mr. Carter said. "It was to explain something."

He said, "I see some 86-year-old man getting a ticket for feeding birds in the park and I don't get it."

But Bloomberg administration officials say Mr. Carter has crossed a line. "It certainly raises the question of whether it is ethical journalism for an editor to use his magazine to push his agenda," said Edward Skyler, the mayor's press secretary, who last week accused Mr. Carter of ordering up a series of hatchet jobs on his boss.

Buzz Bissinger, who wrote the lengthy profile of Mr. Bloomberg, believes the administration protests too much.

"The piece was generally positive," Mr. Bissinger said. "I concluded that in his own idiosyncratic way, he's been an effective mayor." If the mayor's staff believes otherwise, he said, "It's pathetic."

A seminal song from the 1970's performed by the band War comes to mind: "Why Can't We Be Friends?" A sample verse: "I seen ya around for a long long time. I really remember you when you drank my wine."

Indeed Mr. Carter has drunk Mr. Bloomberg's wine, and snacked on his potpies as well. The two met several years ago when Mr. Bloomberg invited Mr. Carter to lunch near Mr. Bloomberg's corporate headquarters. Mr. Carter was later invited to dinner at Mr. Bloomberg's London and New York homes.

The two shared an affinity for social cachet, with Mr. Bloomberg at points embracing Mr. Carter's endeavors.

When Mr. Carter, 54, stopped playing host for dinner for the Serpentine Gallery in London, Mr. Bloomberg, 61, moved to quickly take it over. When word got out that Vanity Fair would no longer be holding the annual party after the White House Correspondents' dinner, Kevin Sheekey, an aide to Mr. Bloomberg at his company and in the administration, hopped in a cab and rushed to the Russian Federation Trade Ministry with a check to secure that party for Bloomberg L.P.

They have had their little jokes. Just last year, Mr. Bloomberg sent Mr. Carter a mock proclamation for a local law affecting "middle-aged men with long hair," stating that they ought to "cut their locks immediately." (Mr. Carter's coif is Baldwinesque: pick a brother.) "Regular inspections will be led by the Office of Emergency Management to begin at Da Silvano restaurant," the proclamation read.

And then the smoking ban came last spring.

Mr. Carter's resistance to the mayor's mandate has become so well known around Condé Nast that when the sprinkler system went off last year, the rumor mill immediately concluded that it was activated during another act of rebellion.

Mr. Carter denies it. "There was a fire in a fashion closet," he said. "I never set off the sprinkler system." He said that he does not smoke much in his office these days — "Not really."

However, Mr. Carter continues to light up in public spaces from time to time, as if he just wanted to vex the mayor. He once lit up not far from the mayor at the Four Seasons.

Mr. Bloomberg maintains that most New Yorkers support the smoking ban, and said pointedly on his weekly radio show on Jan. 9 that there was only "one magazine editor who's apoplectic about this."

He added, "His own people turned him in because he was breaking the law."

Mr. Carter insisted that he thought Mr. Bloomberg was a good mayor, and that he would vote for him in a re-election.

"He's rich; I'm not. He doesn't smoke; I do. But we have common interests," Mr. Carter said. "He is an interesting guy — he is great enjoyable company — but we just disagree on this one issue. I would be very happy to see him in a room."

January 14, 2004
        A Smoke-Filled Room Without the Politics
        By Florence Fabricant

Taking pity on desperate smokers, Joseph Franco, the owner of Caffé on the Green, 201-10 Cross Island Parkway in Bayside, Queens, has set up a tent, the Butt Hut, outside his restaurant and catering hall, once the home of Rudolph Valentino. It has heat, lights and seats. "But I never go in there," Mr. Franco said. "I'm not a smoker."

Smokers can also take shelter in a stretch limo parked in front of the David Burke & Donatella restaurant on East 61st Street. Stickers on the windows say "Smoking Room."

January 13, 2004
        Upstate Bar Wins Reversal of State's Smoking Ban
        By Michelle York

CICERO, N.Y., Jan. 10 — Decades ago, David A. Damon Jr. used to come to his father's bar and banquet hall to spin records, the vinyl kind, for the regulars.

It was a place where people stopped after fishing on Oneida Lake. Or for banquets celebrating another year of bowling competition. For nine years, the Elks ran the hall, about 10 miles north of Syracuse, as their private club. But in 1996, when the club could no longer afford the mortgage payments, the son took it back as his retirement venture.

Mr. Damon never meant to make much money. His business, Damons, was just a place where the memories were as old as the chairs (also the vinyl kind).

But he never meant to lose money, either. And he did after the state's smoking law went into effect last July. "I got killed," said Mr. Damon, 69, a retired engineer. "I didn't just lose the smokers; I lost the friends of the smokers, the nonsmokers, who didn't want to hang out without them."

"People used to come in after golfing," he added. "I stopped seeing fishermen, too. I used to have bowling banquets, but people decided they'd rather shake hands at the last game and go home. They changed their lifestyles."

When the weather began to turn last fall, even the bar's loyalists dropped off after growing tired of tramping out to the gravel parking lot in the cold for a smoke. Mr. Damon said his receipts were down by $1,000 a week. He laid off his only employee, a part-time bartender, and was using his retirement savings and Social Security checks to keep the bar open.

"There used to be 15 to 20 cars in the parking lot, and now you see two," said Michael Smith, a regular who gave up smoking years ago.

Alarmed, Mr. Damon went to Onondaga County officials to exercise a provision in the smoking law intended for just such a predicament. After he proved his economic hardship, and demonstrated that the bar had a separate room suitable for a smoking lounge, the county granted a waiver. Scott Wexler, executive director of the Empire State Restaurant and Tavern Association, a trade group, said he thought the waiver for Damons was the first in the state.

Apparently it will not be the last. "There's going to be a few more that meet the criteria," said Gary R. Sauda, the director of environmental health for the county, which is considering 24 other applications.

The association believes that 10 percent of the state's 16,000 restaurants and bars that are licensed to sell alcohol will ultimately find ways around the tobacco law. How they do so will vary.

When smoking restrictions in the state Clean Indoor Air Act were tightened last year, the state law superseded local smoking laws. But it allows New York City and those counties with full-service health departments to decide whether they will grant waivers and under what conditions. In rural counties without full-service health departments, the state policy for exemptions takes over, said Claire Pospisil, a State Health Department spokeswoman.

Some places, like New York City, and Westchester and Suffolk Counties, do not offer waivers, health officials said. Nassau County recently decided to offer them. "It's happening as we speak," said Cynthia Brown, a spokeswoman for the county's Health Department.

Other counties decided to offer waivers but did not establish guidelines for applications, a situation that has stalled the process.

Some counties may have been waiting for direction from the state, which issued guidelines just in December suggesting that bars that lose 15 percent of their business may be eligible, said Mr. Sauda, the Onondaga environmental health director. Onondaga decided to not require a certain percentage, only a substantiated drop.

Two "economically depressed" counties in the state may try to give waivers to any bars that ask for them, Mr. Wexler said, though he declined to name the counties.

The delays and different rules have led to confusion, frustration and perhaps action, Mr. Wexler said. "News that a bar in Cicero is getting a waiver has stimulated the effort for a level playing field," he said. "The smoking ban will be a major topic in the Legislature this year. I just don't think it's going away."

Since news of the waiver broke, Mr. Wexler said, his office has been getting about a dozen calls a day from bar owners who feel hopeful for the first time since the law was passed.

Even in counties that have guidelines in place, like Onondaga, bar owners face a lengthy approval process. Mr. Damon said the paperwork took weeks, "not including thinking time," he said, "because I guess thinking time doesn't count." He turned over financial records comparing receipts from August through October over a three-year period, and they showed a 40 percent drop in business last year, after the ban took effect. He escorted county inspectors through Damons, showing them a separate banquet room and ventilation system.

His application was approved and the waiver was hand-delivered during the holidays. "Now I have to see if I can get customers back," he said.

As reports of the waiver have spread, he has picked up some new patrons. "I saw it on the news," said Shawn Prell of North Syracuse, "and I said, `Good! We're going to this place.' " Ms. Prell stopped in for a drink on a recent afternoon with her husband, Ed. "We even called our friends."

The Prells confirmed what Mr. Damon believed: that smokers cut down on the number of times they went out to bars or restaurants, but not on their cigarettes, after the ban took effect. "We used to go out every week, but now we go out once a month," Ms. Prell said. "We're saving money."

Mr. Damon clearly hopes to change that. He pointed the Prells toward the smoking lounge and poured their first drink.

January 4, 2004
        Waiting to Inhale
        By Michael Brick

Quietly, and without the contraptions or planning of Prohibition, the cigarette smokers of New York have created their own modern rendition of the speakeasy, where their outlawed pleasure can be enjoyed once more. There are no passwords. You just have to wait.

The proper hour can be 11 p.m., or midnight or later still in places where the patrons do not like to go home. There is no schedule, no phone call, no listing in The Village Voice. The moment comes by common assent, by a shared appraising of all the people remaining in the bar and all the forces around them — the darkness of the windows, the breath of the staff.

"I hear from lots of people, especially in the four outer boroughs," said Audrey Silk, a leader of a group that seeks to repeal the city's smoking ban. "They're letting you smoke."

When the ban took effect nine months ago, disagreements over the public health and economic implications prevailed. Some establishments searched for loopholes in the law, like the Oak Bar at the Plaza Hotel, which sought to present itself as a cigar bar exempted from enforcement. In large measure, these efforts failed, and smokers moved to the streets, the warm weather making the ban's first months somewhat easier on them.

Open resistance to the ban has been muted, coming mostly in the form of lawsuits, including one filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan just before Christmas by the Players Club, seeking to overturn the city and state antismoking laws. As the weather has turned, though, smokers have taken up secretive civil disobedience.

In the past few weeks, it has happened in about half a dozen bars that were visited over five or so nights. Smokers themselves discussed the phenomenon freely; bartenders were interviewed with the assurance that they would not be named and that identifying details of their establishments would not be revealed.

In each place, it was clear when the moment to light up had arrived. It was preceded by a sensation of being unmasked — a relief, of sorts — the kind that comes of knowing one is among friends.

It is a phenomenon not unlike what happened to Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's crackdown on jaywalking, when police officers working the streets seemed to decide that, you know what, some New Yorkers were just going to jaywalk at some intersections.

With smoking, too, the setting can be almost as important as the hour of the night. The occasional sudden transformation into a smoking club does not happen in every place. Stay late on a temperate night at Union Pool, a shiny pickup joint in Williamsburg that offers pictures of naked women on the walls and the rattle of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway overhead, and it is likely the moment will never come. There are too many people, and too many windows, and besides, outdoor space is ample.

The opposite also holds. Setting can trump the hour of the night, and smoking can start before 9 p.m., but usually only when the nature of the place is so entwined with notions of decadence and indulgence that few behaviors are questioned. At the Buzzcocks show at Irving Plaza last month, for instance, even the uptight young woman who turned her head to shush other patrons (apparently she was having trouble hearing the punk rock music) held a lighted cigarette.

Ordinarily, though, even in the bars most amenable to smoking, time is the common controlling factor.

There is, for instance, a bright and festively ornamented bar in Brooklyn where a tight group of regulars gathers nightly to drink away the day's frustrations, to work crossword puzzles and argue word derivations. Among other attributes, the place is perhaps the only etymology bar in the city, and its character changes depending on the hour of the day. After a certain point, when only those well-known customers remain, the bartender, who has long since forsworn smoking and drinking, will sometimes lock the door.

And all who remain know the significance of the turning of the bolt.

What happens after the silent declaration that the rules have been lifted is the same wherever you go.

In the far East Village on Christmas night, a silvery Zippo lighter rested on a pack of Marlboro Lights, right there on the bar just a short walk from the Ms. Pac Man machine. The sight was jarring in its familiarity. What bar did those same items not decorate just a year ago?

The smoke that filled the air announced itself, if only because it had been gone long enough to let eyes and noses forget its taste. The smoke-filled bar, it said, was back.

"It never really left," the bartender said, "depending on the time of night or what the clientele is."

Over in a corner, Michael Reiss, of Brooklyn, sat talking with friends. They arranged themselves loosely around a table by a window.

"Smokers in New York City are going to find what they need to do, what they want to do," Mr. Reiss said. "Here, even if you have an outdoor patio, you're going to freeze. You have bars that are going to let it go."

So, knowing that the moment will come, the smokers sit inside these days, and they hold off their cravings as long as they are able. They may even bundle up and go outside once or twice for a light, putting napkins over their drinks like Southern Californians.

In between trips, they wait.

And then the moment comes, and it is like dancing — it is shared and exuberant and wild. It came after midnight one night last week to a dark and narrow room the shape of a railroad apartment in south Brooklyn, where Christmas lights and candles flickered. A sign on the wall announced that smoking was disallowed. Bodies were sloped lazily on couches. A man on a bar stool had his hand inside the low-slung waistline of his date's jeans.

Boots and Converse All-Stars slapped the floor as the revelers negotiated one another, moving and talking and yelling and smoking. They were in for the night. Long after 3 a.m., a bartender out from his post flicked lighted matches at his customer's feet, laughing and watching the matches expire on the wet floor.

"Dance," the bartender cried.

Up and down the bar from the door to the back wall, the air grew thick and tight and noxious and hazy.

"O.K.," said Matt Taylor, 23, a tourist visiting from Texas. "Everyone's smoking cigarettes. I'm just making sure. . . . "

He let the thought trail off, and was quickly reassured that despite what he had read about New York, smoking was permitted in this bar, on this night, at this hour.

His verbal reaction was overwhelmed by the magic of jukebox speakers, through which Joe Strummer announced from somewhere beyond the great divide that he was still, in fact, the all-night drug-prowling wolf who looks so sick in the sun, and furthermore that he was only looking for fun. His voice faded out and Paul Westerberg's replaced it, reminding a flight attendant who once told him not to smoke that she ain't nothing but a waitress in the sky.

"Who's got an extra cigarette?" called the bartender, and it turned out that just about everybody did.
 
 
 
 

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June 20, 2004
        DR. BLOOMY IS IN
        Nosy Health Dept.'s Personal Health Quiz
        By Jeremy Olshan

Asia Friedman discovered that a trip to Dr. Bloomberg is a far more probing encounter than a visit to her family doctor.

The 29-year-old Park Slope student, who signed on to take part in a city Health Department medical survey, was peppered with dozens of questions on topics ranging from her sexual preferences to her phones and to recreational drug use when she showed up for her "check up" last week.

Friedman was among the first of 2,000 guinea pigs, randomly selected from all five boroughs, that Health Department officers plan to poke, prod and question as part of the first citywide study to physically measure residents' health conditions.

Participants are being paid $100, and the city has given assurances that information will be treated confidentially.

While the study will help assess the rate of diabetes, high cholesterol and depression, it will also give city officials a data pool covering many aspects of New Yorkers' personal lives.

The Post accompanied Friedman on her trip to a medical clinic in Downtown Brooklyn, where she was tested and interviewed for two hours.

Health officials began by thanking her for agreeing to take part and asking her to sign a waiver allowing her blood samples to be frozen for future study.

She provided blood — three small vials and two super-sized ones — and urine samples before being ushered into another room.

Friedman, completing her doctorate in sociology at Rutgers University, was introduced to a nurse, who began reading questions from a laptop computer.

Topics ranged from diet, nutrition and exercise to what kinds of phone lines she uses in her home.

Questioned about her smoking history, Friedman said she was confused about the limited choices she was offered as possible answers.

The nurse told her she was not allowed to diverge from the script to interpret.

"I told her that I used to be a social smoker," Friedman said. "But the minimum choice I was given was a pack a day — and I never smoked anywhere near that much."

After an hour of interrogation, the nurse stopped to measure Friedman's weight, height, waist, arm and bicep, and took her blood pressure three times.

Next, Friedman was left alone in the room to answer the sex and drugs portion of the study on a touch-screen computer.

The first question popped up. "Have you ever used cocaine?"

After going through a laundry list of drugs, the questions shifted to number of sexual partners, sexual orientation — and history of imprisonment.

Finally, Friedman was told she would receive a full health report in a couple of months and was given two $50 postal money orders.

"I'm not sure how much they're going to learn from this," she said. "But I think it was worth the money."

June 17, 2004
        SMOKE BAN STAYS:  SHELLY
        By Ken Lovett

Albany -- Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver yesterday snuffed out the hopes of bar owners who want the Legislature to ease the tough statewide anti-smoking law this year.

Silver says he opposes legislation that would allow smoking sections in bars and taverns that install ventilation systems.

"I think the law works well," Silver said.

"I don't believe that there has been a significant loss of business."

He said the Assembly would not act on the bill, despite support from at least 25 Democratic members.

Bar and tavern owners say they are being hit hard financially because of the law.

June 13, 2004
        BARS THAT BLOW OFF BAN MAY LOSE LIQUOR LICENSE
        By Kenneth Lovett

ALBANY — Bars owners have been warned in threatening government letters that they'll be stripped of their state liquor and lottery licenses if customers continue to smoke, The Post has learned.

The state Health Department, state Liquor Authority and some local county health departments have sent letters to several upstate bars believed to be flouting New York's smoking ban.

"All other business licenses be revoked or suspended, including your liquor and/or lottery licenses," warned Health Department principal sanitarian Leonard Arias in the letters.

Among several bars in Hornell that received warnings were The Angel and Codder's sports bar.

The Liquor Authority, which can suspend liquor licenses when a business is in violation of any state or local ordinances, has also sent out warnings.

Bars owners, already struggling financially because of the law, were outraged to learn they can lose their licenses over the issue.

"The smoking ban itself is putting enough people out of business," said Robert Bookman, counsel for the New York Nightlife Association.

"[Now] the state is threatening to put them out of business for the alleged violation of an ill-considered law."

In the city, bars face closure if they breach the smoking ban more than three times, but it has not been enforced to date.

City health officials say they do not "routinely" refer violators to the Liquor Authority.

June 13, 2004
        PUFF OR SNUFF
        By Sam Smith

Merav Brooks' cigarettes have been snuffing themselves out, and she doesn't know why.

"I keep thinking it's because my ashtray is wet," she said, taking a smoking break outside her job at HBO.

But it's not her ashtray, and soon every New York smoker will notice the same problem.

By June 28, all cigarettes delivered to the state must be self-extinguishing, using new "banded" paper that kills the flame at intervals if it's not puffed.

Some of the new cigarettes, like the Kent brand that Brooks was smoking, have already made their way into the city.

"No wonder they keep going out on me," said Brooks, who was less than elated with the new smokes.

"You don't want anyone else putting out the cigarette for you — there are enough people in the city trying to stop you smoking."

Lorillard, which produces brands such as Kent, Newport and True, is the first tobacco company to ship the new cigarettes to New York.

The other major tobacco companies — R.J. Reynolds, Philip Morris and Brown & Williamson — say their products will be ready by the deadline.

New York is the first state in the country to adopt a safe-cigarette law, which passed last December.

The state's Office of Fire Prevention and Control developed the safety standards, which it hopes will cut down on the 100 to 200 people killed in cigarette fires in the state each year.

"Fires usually start accidentally," said spokesman Peter Constantakes. "These [new cigarettes] will reduce the risk and hopefully save lives."

Cigarette companies, which maintain cigarettes don't cause fires; careless smokers do, say the state should not get its hopes up.

"Just because these cigarettes are produced to self-extinguish, they are not 'fire safe,' " said R.J. Reynolds spokesperson Ellen Wallace. "We don't want adult smokers to be lulled into a false sense of security."

Some of those adult smokers who tested the new Lorillard cigarettes had mixed reactions.

Sadia Zafar, a smoker in Midtown, said she welcomed the new feature. "If you're on the phone and you forget your cigarette, you know it's going to die out," she said. "It's safer."

Tracey Florio, a 37-year-old bookkeeper, said she doesn't care, but her husband will. "I could be cooking and I leave a cigarette in the ashtray, and it burns down to the filter," she said. "My husband has a problem with that."

Tobacco companies say the new cigarettes cost more to produce, but that they won't pass on the added expense to customers.

June 9, 2004
        SILENCING A CITY
        Editorial

Mayor Bloomberg says 1,000 noise complaints a day — from offenders like Mister Softee ice-cream trucks and yelping pooches — justify a major overhaul of the city's noise code.

What he doesn't say is how many kids brighten up at the sound of the Mister Softee jingle, which he'd curb. Or how many ice-cream-truck drivers rely on it for their livelihoods.

Mayor Mike gives no figure for the number of dog owners who rely on the companionship of their pets — but would be hard-pressed to keep their barking within Hizzoner's short time limits.

He makes no mention of the sometimes life-saving benefits of the air conditioners he'd outlaw, the social pleasures at the bars and nightclubs he'd muffle or the economic boost from sometimes loud development and repair work he'd regulate.

Nor does he speak much of the cost to bring such activities into compliance.

Let's get real here: New York is a city.

A large, vibrant and, yes, noisy city.

"Noise disturbs our sleep, prevents people from enjoying their time off . . . [and] often leads to altercations," argues Hizzoner. But if it's quiet he seeks, well . . . that's why God made Montana.

OK, some noise regulation is not entirely ludicrous, even in hustle-and-bustle New York.

And after three decades, it's probably time to revisit the code.

Nor is it clear that Mayor Mike intends to play Mommy Mike in regulating noise as he has with smoking.

Rather, he may have learned from the uproar over his tobacco ban and his shelved plan to license late-night clubs.

Indeed, joining Hizzoner to present the noise-code plan were two potential foes on this issue — Robert Bookman of the New York Nightlife Association and Francis McArdle of the General Contractors Association. Even City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, a likely mayoral challenger, joined in.

Clearly, Mayor Mike wants to skirt confrontation this time around.

But achieving "balance" won't be easy. One idea, for example, is to give cops more discretion. Will that mean more harassment of businesses and individuals — a la the city inspectors who raid shops in search of contraband ashtrays?

Will it mean Mayor Mike has a new revenue-raiser to help plug budget gaps?

Of course, if all of this sounds petty, maybe it's because Gotham is used to far weightier woes — like, say, drive-by shootings and 2,000-plus murders a year.

Such horrors seem to be history now: The murder toll has been less than 600 for two years running.

But overregulation — noise cops on top of health-care monitors and ashtray police — will create its own blight.

Gotham is again a great city.

But it's a city; let it live as one.

June 3, 2004
        SMOKE BAN HITS 'HOODS
        By David Rabin
        David Rabin, co-owner of Union Bar and Lotus, is president of the New York Nightlife Association

THE City Council has granted development rights to 16 sites in Soho and Noho, provided that no liquor licenses of any kind — not even restaurants — be granted in those new buildings.

Meanwhile, Manhattan Community Board 3 has declared a moratorium on the consideration of all liquor licenses within its borders. That's only advisory — but it sends quite a message to local politicians and to the State Liquor Authority. Similarly, residents of St. Mark's Place (that quiet, suburban oasis) have threatened to sue the SLA to halt the granting of any further licenses on their block.

Every single article on these developments mentions one thing — the increase in street noise since the passage of the smoking ban.

The exact same conversation goes on at Community Boards 2, 5 and others. New applicants in residential areas are grilled mercilessly: What time do you plan to close? What are you going to do with your smokers?

And the answer is . . . "Nothing." It has to be — because there is nothing we bar owners can do under the current law, except put our smokers out in the street and hope not to stir up justifiable community resentment and even noise tickets, or let them smoke inside and risk summonses that could put us out of business.

All our residential neighbors want is a good night's sleep. It's hard to fault them for not seeing the future and the multiplier effect on the city economy if restaurants and bars are phased out of many neighborhoods.

The only real answer is to get the smokers back inside the bars, where they belong. The Meier/Destito bill pending in the state Legislature does so in a way that should answer all factions in a satisfactory manner.

In a nutshell, if food revenues are less than 40 percent of a bar, tavern or club's business, and it's willing to install the same kind state-of-the-art air filtration equipment that's used in hospital infectious-disease wards (which can make the air in the bar far cleaner than that in the street), it would be allowed to permit smoking once again.

If that bill carries in Albany, we'd still have to work to change the New York City Smoke Free Air Act. But it would be a start.

We're not talking about family restaurants or fine dining establishments. Even though the city Health Department and smoking-ban supporters desperately try to treat restaurants and bars as one, we're only talking about bars, taverns and clubs. That's where the economic damage of the ban has been done. Those are the places that stay open late enough to be forced to keep their neighbors awake by obeying the law and putting their smokers outside.

If, as government officials allege, business has improved so much since the ban, why would any operators even bother to install the technology? The supposedly improved market should lead them to stay "smoke free."

No organization supporting changes to the smoking ban is pro-tobacco. None of us doubts the dangers of being a smoker. But the real issue is the cloudy one of second-hand smoke — and the answer is filtration.

Summer is upon us; the social scene will once again shift outside to the sidewalks in front of our bars. The Legislatlure should pass this bill, which takes the employee health issue out of the equation and gives operators and customers a choice once again.

May 16, 2004
        PIPE DREAMS
        By Chris Bunting

New York pub owners are pinning their hopes on a 90-pound gadget to put butts - and cash - back into bars.

It's called the Airistar 1000, an air purifier that removes dangerous microscopic contaminants - like germs, fungal spores, even anthrax - from the air.

Spurred on by bar owners who say the smoking ban has extinguished their take by as much as 40 percent, two Albany lawmakers are finalizing identical bills that would permit smoking where filters like the Airistar 1000 are installed.

The $3,500 gizmo - so named because it cleans 1,000 cubic feet of air per minute - can eliminate 99 percent of cigarette smoke in a matter of minutes.

Manufactured by Illinois company Airistar, it's equipped with wheels for mobility and can blend into the background of a bar as a table.

"These state-of-the-art filters make room air cleaner than what you breathe outside," New York Night Life Association spokesman Basil Anastassiou said after a recent demonstration in the office of Assemblywoman RoAnn Destito (D-Rome). State Sen. Raymond Meier (R-Western) is also sponsoring a similar bill.

According to he company's advertising manager, Sean Burke, 115 Airistar 1000s have been sold around the country since they went on sale eight months ago, and 19 were bought by restaurants and bars.

Sam Pappas, owner of Market Square, a bar 20 miles outside of Chicago, installed the gadget to quell customers' complaints about smoky air, despite the fact that Illinois hasn't imposed a smoking ban.

"We hold events ranging from birthdays to Super Bowl parties, and I'd get complaints about the mist of smoke," Pappas said. "Now the place is crystal clear."

Even if Albany's new laws are passed, the Big Apple won't be immediately inhaling the benefits.

"New York City's laws are more stringent than the bill I'm proposing - and the city's law would preempt it," Meier said.

"However, passage of my bill might persuade city council members to follow suit."

The New York Night Life Association is armed with a petition addressed to Gov. Pataki, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno signed by 40,000 from bar patrons and workers - one-quarter from New York City - asking that smoking be permitted in air-filtered bars.

Almost a year after Mayor Bloomberg's smoking ban went into effect on July 24, 2003, New York City bars are still feeling the economic burn.

"The city's bars lose on average an estimated 15 to 19 percent in revenues because of the ban," said Brian Nolan, executive director of United Restaurant & Tavern Owners of New York, Inc.

Interviews with more than a dozen bar owners and managers conducted by The Post show the revenue loss is often even more extreme.

Fiddlers Green, a bar on West 48th Street, shut down April 1.

"Sales were down 25 percent," said Eugene Wilson, the bar's manager. "Three of our waitresses left because they weren't making enough in tips."

Sandee Wright, the co-owner of Whiskey Ward on Essex Street, said she was battling a 30 to 40 percent drop in sales.

"I've had to lay three people off, starting with my doorman - my husband does it for free now," she said.

May 15, 2004
        ONE-THIRD BLOW OFF CITY CIG TAX
        By David Seifman

A third of smokers here aren't paying the $1.50-a- pack cigarette tax - leading the city health commissioner to warn that smuggled smokes are "the single biggest threat" to the city's tough anti-smoking law.

"There has been a substantial increase in the purchase and consumption of nontaxed and smuggled cigarettes in New York City and other high-taxed jurisdictions," Thomas Frieden told a Crain's New York breakfast forum.

"This is probably the single biggest threat in progress to tobacco control in New York City."

Cigarette sales in the five boroughs collapsed after the city increased its portion of the tax from 8 cents to $1.50 a pack on July 2, 2002.

In the next 12 months, 182 million packs were sold - compared to 342 million in the previous 12-month period.

Sandra Mullin, a Health Department spokeswoman, said two-thirds of smokers who responded to a recent survey said they are buying their cigarettes legally.

"Others are purchasing cigarettes from sources such as Indian reservations, through the Internet, outside the U.S., from other states, through the mail," she said.

A pack of Camels was selling for $6.75 yesterday at the smoke shop across from City Hall.

But on the Internet, the upstate Seneca Indians were peddling a carton of 10 packs for $30.75 - less than half the regular retail price.

Frieden called on the federal and state governments to enforce the law on Indian reservation sales. By law, city residents can purchase only two cartons of untaxed cigarettes at a time for their personal use.

"The state does have the implementation authority," declared Frieden. "They went to the Supreme Court to get it and they're not using it."

May 13, 2004
        SMOKE SCREENING
        By Brooks Boliek and Russel Scott Smith

AUDREY Hepburn did it. So did Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Nicole Kidman and, famously, Olivia Newton-John. But you'll never see another movie star smoke on screen if the anti-smoking lobby has its way.

Critics of the tobacco industry want Hollywood to treat on-screen smoking the same way it treats indecent language and nudity - with an R rating from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

It's a change that would effectively ban smoking from many movies, since an R rating hurts a movie at the box office, and producers regularly demand that directors deliver a crowd-friendly rating.

Congress is listening to the activists: On Tuesday, the Senate Commerce Committee invited anti-smoking witnesses to testify on Capitol Hill.

"When are we going to treat smoking as seriously as we treat the word 'f - - - '?" Dr. Stan Glantz asked the panel. Glantz, a leading tobacco-industry opponent, is a professor of medicine at the University of California.

"If you use the F-word once in a sexual context, you get an R rating."

Glantz's salty language wasn't appreciated by Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), who reminded the professor of the Senate's standards of decorum.

But while Glantz apologized for using the word, he said he used it to make a point.

"I did it quite deliberately," he said. "The use of the word will get you an R rating. It doesn't kill you."

Glantz and other anti-smoking activists say that giving an R rating to movies that contain smoking would prevent 200,000 children a year from lighting up. They argue that 390,000 children develop a tobacco habit because of what they see on the big screen.

Though there is no legislation pending that would force the MPAA to modify its ratings system, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said the movie industry has to step up or it might face such a law.

MPAA chairman Jack Valenti testified in defense of the current system.

"I am opposed to smoking on the screen and off," he told the Senate panel.

"But if the director feels it's essential to the time and place, or a quick way to identify a character's traits, it's his right to tell the story as he sees fit."

It's hard to imagine countless classic movies without those smoking scenes, say experts.

"Cigarettes can instantly convey what a character is like," says Martin Grove, on-line columnist for the Hollywood Reporter.

"Think of Lauren Bacall in a '40s movie like 'The Big Sleep.' When she lights up, it shows that she's a liberated woman, and you don't want to fool around with her."

Cigarettes can indicate elegance - like a tuxedoed Fred Astaire pulling a smoke from a shiny case in one of his '30s musicals - or desperation, like in "Casablanca," when Humphrey Bogart's ashtray fills with butts as he tries to drink away thoughts of Ingrid Bergman.

But according to the anti-smoking lobby, it's not art that Hollywood is after in these scenes, but cash.

At the Senate hearing, Glantz suggested that "product placement" money was changing hands somewhere, even though that would violate the national accord reached by the states and the tobacco industry on advertising.

"If they're getting paid, then they are corrupt," Glantz said. "If they're doing it for free, then they're stupid."

Valenti said that was ridiculous.

"I have been unable to unearth one jot of evidence of product placement with cigarettes," he said.

"The MPAA doesn't want to make smoking one of the triggers for a film rating or to add a T for tobacco designation because that would open the door for everyone's pet causes.

"Alcohol abuse, murder by gun, unsafe driving, smoking, obesity . . . To start talking about things that kill people, the rating system isn't capable of bearing that burden."

May 13, 2004
        NYERS KICK 'BUTT'
        By Stephanie Gaskell

New Yorkers smoked 700 million fewer cigarettes last year, health officials said yesterday.

Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden, who drafted the city's tough smoking ban, touted the new figures - released as part of a Baruch College poll of 10,000 residents - at a budget hearing at City Hall yesterday.

"This is extraordinarily good news for the health of New Yorkers," he said.

The poll showed that 19 percent of New Yorkers smoked in 2003, compared with 22 percent in 2002.

The city's original ban, which prohibited smoking in virtually all public places but allowed for some exceptions, was replaced with a much stricter statewide ban in July.

A critic charged the city isn't measuring how many New Yorkers are illegally buying their butts outside the five boroughs to evade a $1.50-a-pack tax enacted in July 2002.

"While the mayor and the health commissioner are praising the drop in cigarette consumption, no one has lifted a finger at the devastation caused by the transfer of sales from legitimate store owners to street-corner hustlers," said Richard Lipsky, spokesman for the Neighborhood Retail Alliance.

"Bodega owners, green grocers and newsstand dealers are losing $250 million a year."

May 12, 2004
        MIKE HAILS BID TO RAISE CIG AGE
        By Stephanie Gaskell

Mayor Bloomberg supports a move to raise the legal tobacco- buying age to 19.

"I certainly would not be opposed to raising the age," the mayor said yesterday during a press conference in Chelsea. "Anything you can do to keep children from smoking is probably a very good thing."

Under current law, tobacco products can't be sold to anyone under 18. But earlier this week, two state legislators introduced a bill to hike the minimum age to 19.

Bloomberg banned smoking in virtually all public places in the city last year. He allowed for some limited exemptions, but those were wiped out by a much stricter statewide ban. The mayor also increased the city's tax on cigarettes to $1.50 a pack.

"I've done what I think I can to discourage smoking in this city," Bloomberg said.

But apparently, he didn't think about raising the age limit.

"It hadn't occurred to me that they would raise the age," he said.

May 11, 2004
        MEASURE WOULD UP CIG AGE TO 19
        By Kenneth Lovett

ALBANY - Get set for the next big cigarette fight: Lawmakers yesterday announced a push to raise the legal tobacco-purchasing age to 19.

The current age to buy tobacco products is 18.

Bill sponsors Assemblywoman Sandra Galef (D-Westchester) and Sen. James Alesi (R-Rochester) said the idea behind the bill to raise the legal age is to cut down on smoking among high-school kids.

Many students get their cigarettes from 18-year-old classmates who can purchase them legally, the two said.

"Just bumping it up a year will make it more difficult for kids to get their hands on cigarettes, and hopefully reduce the number of underage smokers who become addicted every year," Galef said.

Alesi said he would prefer to raise the legal age to 21, but felt 19 would give the measure a better chance of passage.

Anti-smoking groups like the American Cancer Society back the bill, which has already moved through the Assembly Health Committee.

About 30 percent of New York's high-school age students are regular smokers, said Donald Distasio, Eastern Division CEO of the American Cancer Society.

But others, including the New York Public Interest Research Group, called on the Legislature to leave the law in place as it is.

"Eighteen-year-olds are adults," said NYPIRG's Blair Horner. "If you're old enough to vote, there's no reason why as adults you should be restricted" from having the choice to smoke.

Horner also said "there's no proof that raising the age will do anything other than increase illegal sales of cigarettes."

In recent years, the Legislature has taken aim at smoking, substantially raising the taxes per pack while also banning all smoking in bars, restaurants and other public areas.

The state Conservative Party yesterday renewed its push for lawmakers to amend the smoking ban law to allow for the creation of separately ventilated smoking areas.

Such a change has been deemed a long shot this year.

April 22, 2004
        CITY PUFFED WITH PRIDE OVER CIG-PATCH SMOKING 'CURE'
        By Stephanie Gaskell

One in three New Yorkers who received nicotine patches from the city were still not smoking after six months, officials said yesterday - raising eyebrows with a figure that's double the norm.

Health Department officials attributed their success to three key factors - the patches were free, the cost of cigarettes has soared and the city has banned smoking in indoor public places.

"There were few, if any, barriers," said Dr. Nancy Miller, assistant commissioner for tobacco control.

Previous studies have shown success rates half of what the city had.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1999 found 16.4 percent of smokers who used the patch stopped smoking over roughly the same time period.

A similar 2003 American Cancer Society study shows a 17.7 percent quit rate among smokers who used the skin device.

"From general real-world experience, this doesn't happen that often," said Joel Spitzer, a Chicago-based smoking prevention and cessation consultant.

"Even the patch companies don't report those sort of results."

Last April, the Health Department handed out free patches - worth up to $100 for a six-week supply - to nearly 35,000 people. Health officials called nearly half the participants after the first three to four weeks to see how they were doing. Another call was made after eight weeks.

After six months, officials called some participants and asked if they had lit up in the past seven days.

Nearly 33 percent of those contacted said "no," including 69-year-old John Mackin of Chelsea, who smoked a pack a day for 45 years.

"I tried to stop four, five, six times . . . nothing was working," Mackin said. "Without the patches I couldn't do it."

City officials estimated the free patch program saved 1,700 lives.

[NYC C.L.A.S.H. Note: They called SOME participants (out of a total of near 35,000) and asked if they had lit up IN THE PAST SEVEN DAYS.  Of those "some," 33% REPORTED "no" (to the people who they got free stuff from. Do they show their gratitude by telling them their gift was a dud?).  Apply the magic of extrapolation to the unknown number of people they DIDN'T SPEAK TO and the "some" that they did (33% of 35,000) and voila!.....  you get the "over 11,000" that the other articles report DOH Commish Frieden says quit.  Then you have to scratch your head at how Frieden pulls out from his hat the number 1700 lives saved of the over 11,000 that quit due to the use of the patch.  Why isn't it the entire 11,000??  Doesn't quitting smoking immediately return immortality??  Frieden should quit his day job.  He's got promise in Coney Island as the next fortune teller.]

April 9, 2004
        SMOKERS LOSE ANOTHER ASH FRAY
        By Stephanie Gaskell

New York's smoking ban does not violate the Constitution, a federal judge ruled yesterday.

NYC CLASH, a smokers-rights group, filed a lawsuit last year against the city and state arguing that the ban violates several constitutional rights.

But U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero ruled yesterday that "New York state's and New York City's stated basis for enacting the smoking bans - protecting its citizenry from the well-documented harmful effects of [secondhand smoke] - provides a sufficient rational basis to withstand CLASH's constitutional challenges."

CLASH - Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment - also argued that the scientific data used in passing the law was flawed.

April 8, 2004
        POL WANTS CIG-VOTE REDO
        By Stephanie Gaskell

City officials aren't listening to bar owners who say business is down because of the smoking ban, according to a City Council member who voted for the measure.

"I always said that if the ban was hurting business we should take another look at it," said Councilman Tony Avella (D-Queens).  He wants the council to hold hearings on the economic impact of the year-old ban.

City officials released data earlier this month showing that bar and restaurant business is up 8.7 percent in the past year.  Critics, however, say that figure is flawed because it includes non-bar restaurants and fast-food joints.

Avella said he believes there's a lot of support in the council for revisiting the issue.

April 4, 2004
        MIKE'S BAN, OUR PAIN
        By Brian Nolan
        Brian Nolan is executive director of United Restaurant & Tavern Owners of New York.

THE Bloomberg administration's much- reported statement on the healthy state of New York's hospitality industry is a complete distortion of the facts.

The combined effort by four of city agencies indicated in no uncertain manner that business is booming under the mayor's strict smoking ban: Spending in restaurants, bars and taverns is up by 8.7 percent since the imposition of the smoking ban on March 29, 2003, the report claimed. Revenues were up and taxes were up and workers were happier and healthier.

Here's the truth: What was up was the collection of the General Corporation Tax and the Unincorporated Business Tax from the entire hospitality sector. But that is not the sales tax - it's no reflection of how much business bars and restaurants are doing on a daily basis. That picture is not so rosy.

That 8.7 percent increase reflects many things - new fast-food franchises and big-box chain restaurants, for starters. Existing bars and restaurants? Many have been surviving since 9/11 by raising food and drink prices, laying off or restricting employment and cutting costs - running meaner and leaner while the economy recovered. Some bar owners have even foregone salary in order to increase cash-flow.

Furthermore, when calculating these taxes, depreciation allowances on recently purchased equipment is taken into account. If less money is invested, as has happened since 9/11, the potential exposure to these taxes is increased.

Starbucks is doing well, but your neighborhood tavern is not. What has been the backbone of New York's social scene for generations is losing its vitality in a bad B movie called "Gone with the Smoke."

Customers don't like standing out in the cold - and when they do, they're not refilling their glasses. That's Business 101. (Forgive me, Mr. Mayor, you'll have to stay back a year and repeat the course.)

Our mayor said that "only a small handful of bars have been adversely affected by the smoking ban." He must have very large hands: In a December survey by the state Restaurant Association, 76 percent of responding New York City bars and restaurants said their sales had dropped by an average of 25 percent since April 2003. Even Dr. Thomas Frieden just admitted that free-standing bars are suffering economic hardship.

Here's another measure: The city's Wholesale Beer and Liquor Distributors admit privately that on-premise deliveries (which is basically sales to bars and restaurants) are down by as much as 20 percent since April 2003.

Bartenders and waitresses who were the intended recipients of a safer workplace now find themselves outside the bars - having a smoke themselves, or looking for a second job. Tips are down even in the best restaurants, since the single-malt and designer-vodka crew abandoned their after-dinner drinks in favor of a cigar outside.

The smoking ban was rushed through without due consideration of its negative impact on the small business owners who operate bars, taverns, clubs and restaurants. If a Starbucks outlet suffers a drop in business, it is a small drop in a very large bucket. When the neighborhood "local" or a family-owned restaurant loses business, it goes out of business.

The state Liquor Authority awarded 1,416 new licenses in 2003 in New York City compared to 1,361 in 2002. Most of those new licenses went to replace bars and restaurants that had gone out of business. No prizes for guessing why.

What is needed is a compromise to protect the thousands of small-business owners who make New York City the undisputed hospitality capital of the world. This is the city that never sleeps, because New Yorkers always had places to go to relax, converse, eat, drink - and, for many, enjoy a smoke. Disrupting that social rhythm may well make New York the city that yawns and goes to bed.

The mayor must stop his self-serving allegations of prosperity for the hospitality industry and realize he is driving small business owners and entrepreneurs out onto the street, just where he sent their customers.

Do you know the difference between politicians and golfers? Golfers can't improve their lie.

March 30, 2004
        MAYOR: MY SMOKE BAN IS POPULAR
        By Stephanie Gaskell

Mayor Bloomberg has a warning for anyone thinking about running against him in 2005: don't try to reverse the smoking ban.

Several potential candidates for mayor have told The Post they favor some sort of change in the year-old law, which bans all smoking in bars and restaurants.

"Those who want to run against it, good luck having a campaign on bringing back smoking," said Bloomberg. "This will turn out to be one of the most popular things that the administration has done."

One potential rival said it's exactly that attitude that will hurt Bloomberg's chances of getting re-elected.

"It should come as no surprise that the mayor doesn't seem to hear the voices of a lot of small businesses and an overwhelming number of New Yorkers who think that the bill went too far," said Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Queens).

"If the mayor wants to know how this is going, he shouldn't look at the polls - he should visit the bars," he added.

March 29, 2004
        MOTHER BLOOMBERG
        Editorial

Don't take it personally, but Mayor Bloomberg thinks you smoke too much, eat too much and drink too much.

That is, you take lousy care of yourself.

But don't fret.

Mama Mike is here.

He knows best.

And he'll make it all better.

Like it or not.

That's the message behind a huge expansion the mayor plans for city government's role in maintaining the health of every single New York resident.

The plan, announced last week, focuses on 10 areas of health care. It's so extensive, intrusive and government-centered, it'd make Hillary Clinton blush.

Its overriding goal: To have government intervene in the health care of everyone in the city whenever officials believe they can make a difference.

No one opposes better health care, of course. But plenty of New Yorkers will resent Mama Mike looking over their shoulders - telling them what to eat and drink, to quit smoking and to get regular medical checkups. All of that's part of the mayoral plan.

It may all be good advice. But it's grossly inappropriate for government to be playing Mommy in such a way. (Plenty of folks don't like to be told what to do by their real moms.)

Think about it: One day you have a baby; the next day there's a knock on the door - from a city bureaucrat.

That's right: Bloomberg & Co. want to begin home visits to every new mother in select neighborhoods.

Nor is it certain the harping will prompt desired action: After all, if New Yorkers don't care enough to see a doctor on their own, why expect them to suddenly change their lifestyles on the basis of a flier they get in the mail?

Besides, health advice is notoriously muddled (if not wrong): One day, for instance, you're told to eat margarine; the next day - butter's actually better.

Similarly, while Mike claims his near-blanket smoking ban saves lives by protecting folks from second-hand smoke, there's no scientific evidence to back him up.

Meanwhile, Gotham already offers more government services than any other big city in America. And taxes more than any other city to cover the cost.

Where will the money come from to pay for this big nanny-state expansion?

Yes, many of Bloomberg's ideas amount to merely "advocating" for this or that - or educating the public through fairly cheap ad campaigns.

But some of the programs might cost plenty.

How much?

Bloomberg hasn't said.

And one part of the plan speaks volumes about the mayor's concern (or lack of it) for fiscal probity: Even as he complains that Albany has saddled him with a budget-busting Medicaid bill, City Hall intends to step up its efforts to recruit new Medicaid patients.

Which will send costs soaring.

The fact is, Mike really doesn't want to contain Medicaid's growth so much as he wants someone else - namely, the state - to pick up the tab.

Which will make New York's already anemic economy even sicker.

Whatever happened to chicken soup, anyway?

March 29, 2004
        BIZ IS $MOKING
        By Stephanie Gaskell

Business is "thriving" a year after Mayor Bloomberg banned smoking in bars and restaurants, health officials said yesterday.

City officials will formally present "The State of the Smoke-Free New York City: A One-Year Review" today.

The rosy report shows that bar and restaurant owners reported an 8.7 percent increase in tax receipts last year; about 10,600 new jobs were created; and 97 percent of bars are complying with the law, which was passed March 30.

"The law has not hurt the bar and restaurant industry," Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said. The report includes two recent polls showing that most New Yorkers like the ban. But many bar owners disagree.

"If the ban was good for the bar business, why has no one ever built a nonsmoking bar before the ban?" asked David Rabin, president of the New York Nightlife Association.

Rabin said the city's data is flawed because "they lump bars and taverns in with fine dining and with Starbucks and fast-food restaurants."

Rabin also questioned whether the new jobs were created "because people in the service industry have taken second jobs to make up for lost tip income."

March 28, 2004
        THE STATES' TOBACCO SLUSH FUND
        Editorial

Remember that humongous cash settlement that 46 state attorneys general reached with the tobacco industry way back in 1998?

The $206 billion collected from so-called Big Tobacco was to reimburse the states for increased health-care costs inflicted by the noxious weed.

Now the General Accounting Office has uncovered the truth behind the tort-bar's biggest legal victory ever: Little of the money is going to health care.

A comprehensive audit by the GAO, Congress' investigative arm, shows that state lawmakers across the nation are using more and more of the funds to plug holes in their budgets.

Nationwide, the figure was 36 percent of all settlement funds last year - and will rise to 54 percent this year.

In contrast, just 24 percent of tobacco settlement earnings was spent on health-related programs. And that figure will plummet to just 17 percent this year.

What gives?

Turns out the much-ballyhooed settlement had a dirty little secret: For all their solemn promises and pledges, the states were never legally obliged to spend a dime of their windfall on health care.

"There was no obligation in the settlement to do it, and that was one of the weaknesses of the settlement," admitted a spokesman for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

Yet recovering the costs of treating sick smokers was the whole justification for this legal broadside against the tobacco industry.

Indeed, the tort lawyers and attorneys general realized they'd be on shaky legal ground should they sue on behalf of individual smokers - who'd been warned for 40 years about the dangers of smoking.

Instead, they sued on behalf of taxpayers, citing the burden of increased health-care costs. (The lawyers, of course, made tens of millions for themselves.)

From the outset, lawmakers had their own ideas on how to spend the money. Locally, Sen. Charles Schumer thought it should be used to reduce property taxes, while state Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno wanted it to pay for local tax cuts. Then-Mayor Giuliani thought it would be a great way to pay for renovating old schools and building new ones.

So much for the health-care "crisis."

In fact, the GAO has merely confirmed what an American Cancer Society official said more than five years ago: "Everybody is like vultures over this money."

Remember that when those same birds start circling over the fast-food industry.

March 22, 2004
        PUFF PATROLLERS BURN MIDNIGHT OIL AS CIG LAW HITS MILESTONE
        By Stephanie Gaskell

A year after Mayor Bloomberg banned smoking in bars and restaurants, health officials are now working "late nights" trying to catch illegal puffers, The Post has learned.

Shortly after the ban was put in place a year ago, health officials told The Post that the inspectors would call it quits after 11 p.m.

But last Friday, inspectors made a sweep of several bars on Avenue A after midnight.

"He came in a little after midnight, looked around and left," said Harold Kramer, who owns the Raven bar on Avenue A. "They visited every bar on the block."

"They're just doing it because it's the one-year anniversary."

During the first year of the ban, many bars turned a blind eye to smoking after 11 p.m. But Health Department spokeswoman Sandra Mullin said yesterday that inspectors "will inspect places late nights into the morning, especially when we receive complaints related to violations at those times."

Mullin said the recent spate of late-night visits wasn't part of a crackdown but "we certainly do get after-hour complaints."

Even though health officials said 97 percent of bars and restaurants are complying with the law, the city's 311 line got 2,833 complaints about illegal smoking at bars and restaurants in the past year. <