February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Bar and restaurant owners are still lobbying in Albany for the ban to be mitigated, or even repealed.
The New York City ban was imposed on March 31, 2003 but fines were not levied against violators until a month later. The city ban was followed on July 24 by a state-wide ban.
One of Mayor Bloomberg’s allies during the push to ban smoking in public places, City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, has changed his tune on the ban, saying that bars and restaurants deserve a 30 percent cut in business taxes to help them cope with the effects of the recession, last August’s blackout, and the smoking ban. Miller is a possible candidate for mayor against Bloomberg in the 2005 election.
But yesterday Bloomberg went on the attack and said any future mayoral contender who tried to use the smoking ban against him would come up short.
“Those who want to go and run against it — good luck having a campaign on bringing back smoking,” he said.
But bar and restaurant owners insist that the ban has been bad for business. A report issued by several city agencies yesterday contradicted them, saying business is up 8.7 percent in restaurants and bars during the first year of the ban.
“If this ban is good for business, as the mayor and politicians said,” said Ciaran Staunton, owner of O’Neill’s Bar on Third Avenue and a campaigner to have the ban repealed or mitigated, “then why are so many bar owners going to Albany and working intensively with legislators in an effort to overturn it? That’s the reality.”
Most smoking punters admit to being quite used to stepping outside for a cigarette — an action that has brought with it associated noise and litter problems for some city neighborhoods. The smoking-outside scene has even been cited as a new way to meet people and make friends.
There is evidence too that the ban is by no means effective, with some bars permitting smokers to light up after midnight.
But Bloomberg’s attitude to any would-be mayoral contender who thinks he or she can make the smoking ban an election issue, seems to be one of “bring it on.”
“This will turn out to be one of the most popular things that the administration has done,” Bloomberg said.