Joe Queenan

Dying for a cigarette

Joe Queenan on the terror, misery and lunacy that have followed the smoking ban in New York

issue 26 April 2003

New York

Fifty-three years ago, Frank Loesser wrote a famous musical about the refusal of New Yorkers to kowtow to the demands of earnest reformers and implacable do-gooders. Since Guys and Dolls bowed, New York has survived J. Edgar Hoover, Joe McCarthy, Spiro Agnew, Rudy Giuliani and the ministrations of a host of other civic-minded zealots determined to force the city to clean up its act. But it could not survive Mike Bloomberg.

On 30 March of this year, Mayor Bloomberg finally got his wish when a citywide ban on smoking in bars and restaurants came into effect. Smokers were branded as the enemy of the people; sinister curs whose vile habits have contributed to the deaths of innumerable bartenders, waitresses, busboys, porters and, presumably, a substantial number of carnies, floozies, counter jumpers, barflies, rum runners and travelling salesmen. The ban also stripped New Yorkers of the right to light up in bowling alleys and rooftop gardens.

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