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Excerpts from: ON MAYOR'S BAN WAGON Other cities target cigarettes

By DAVID SALTONSTALL Daily News (New York) [10/03/02]

Mayor Richard Daley is doing it in Chicago. So is Mayor Thomas Menino in Boston, as well as political leaders in Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester counties.

All have followed Mayor Bloomberg's lead and are contemplating a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants, making New York a key battleground that could signal smoking policy changes across the country. "All eyes are on New York right now - both among advocates and the tobacco industry," said Elena Deutsch, director of tobacco control for the American Cancer Society. "I think there will definitely be a ripple effect."

Not that New York is the first place to propose such a ban. California and Delaware passed statewide bans in recent years. And New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey's staff recently sat down with the American Cancer Society to consider a ban there.

Watching the city

But New York is New York - and if the anti-smoking forces can make it there, they might very well make it anywhere.

"When California did it," said John Banzhaf, executive director of the Washington-based Action on Smoking and Health, "I think a lot of people said, 'Oh, that's California, the land of the health nuts.' Nobody can say New York is full of health nuts."

The implications of New York going smoke-free also have registered with the National Restaurant Association, a lobbying group that has labeled Bloomberg "persistently anti-tobacco" on its Web site.

"Folks are watching New York," said a member of the American Beverage Licensees, another national bar owners group. "Wherever that line gets drawn, others will likely follow."

Their concern is not without precedent. After New York passed laws in 1995 requiring restaurants to install separately ventilated smoking areas, many cities followed.

Bracing for battle

Both sides are girding for war. In hopes of arming the mayor with new data, the city Health Department took to the streets recently with sophisticated equipment to measure air quality in bars.

Among other findings, they concluded that air quality in the typical smoke-filled bar is 50 times worse than at the entrance to the Holland Tunnel.

And Bloomberg shows no sign of backing down. He said yesterday that he supported the firing of a Housing Authority manager who took 69 minutes for smoking breaks before lunch, and he promised to help any City Council member who backed his bill.

"If they don't vote for it, I can't understand what the argument could possibly be," Bloomberg said. "What's more important than people's lives?"

Graphic: THE AIR IN BARS STINKS.Air-quality tests show that spending a night in a New York bar is worse for your health than breathing exhaust fumes at the mouth of the Holland Tunnel. The results, based on carbon monoxide readings measured in micrograms per cubic meter:

Central Park 6

Columbus Circle 8

Mouth of the Holland Tunnel 17

Typical nonsmoking bar 21

Port Authority Bus Terminal 48

Typical smoky bar 866