Mayor Michael Bloomberg seems not to care that he can be a lightning rod for frustration. He matter-of-factly talks about the fiscal pain to come for New York City, offering no sugar coating. That, as New York is learning, is the Bloomberg way.
The Tort Tax
21 October 2002
Mayor Bloomberg's case will be harder to put over now that he�s thrown in with the tort lawyers and their demagoguery in the matter of secondhand smoke. But it�s nice to see a leader of the city starting to engage on this issue.
Bloomberg, Heckled, Presses Smoking Curbs
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER ~
10 October 2002
City Council hearings are sometimes important. They are occasionally well attended.
But they rarely feature the mayor, a roomful of his hecklers and a man dressed as a giant
cigarette.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg pleaded his case yesterday to a packed Council chamber for
legislation to ban smoking in all indoor public spaces, a measure that, if passed, would
make New York City among the toughest places in the nation to be a smoker.
"The
question before us is straightforward," Mr. Bloomberg said to the standing-room-only
crowd gathered for the first City Council hearing on the legislation. "Does your
desire to smoke anywhere, at any time, trump the right of others to breathe clean air in
the workplace? Common sense and common decency demand the following answer: The need to
breathe clean air is more important than the license to pollute it."
But just
as Mr. Bloomberg is sure of the righteousness of ridding the city of clouds of smoke,
his opponents are equally committed to stopping him,
arguing that the legislation would hurt the city's economy. "The mayor is a brilliant
businessman," testified Ciaran Staunton, who owns O'Neill's bar in Midtown Manhattan.
"But he knows absolutely nothing about the bar business."
The testimony, which lasted nearly eight hours, at times seemed to cut along class lines,
with small-bar owners from less affluent areas of the city suggesting that their
billionaire mayor was insensitive to the dynamics of the restaurant business.
"If I had the mayor's net worth," said James McBratney, president of the
Staten Island Restaurant and Tavern Association, "I wouldn't be here today."
The mayor was roundly heckled when he suggested that bars would actually make more money
if they banned smoking, reasoning that patrons would simply buy more drinks. One opponent
of the legislation was removed from the chamber as he screamed to loud applause,
"It's a private sin."
Two hours before the hearing began, a huge crowd gathered in front of City Hall in
a display of civic theater not seen since the AIDS protests in the early days of the
Giuliani administration.
Hotel workers traded barbs with bar customers, bartenders
interrupted the news conferences of smoking opponents, and a man dressed as a large
cigarette bobbed silently among the crowd under a light patter of rain, holding a placard
that read "I H secondhand smoke." There were three Grim Reapers cloaked in black
shrouds, one of whom was shoved. Some people puffed Benson & Hedges, others shooed
them away.
Yelling was standard fare.
The theatrics continued, in a subdued form, inside the Council chamber, where
witnesses included restaurant workers, a pregnant bartender and people who sell video
games to bars. There were even musicians who played wind instruments, who argued that it
was tougher to play in bars with smokers.
Mr. Bloomberg, who appeared utterly
unruffled by the hecklers, has presented the bill, Intro 256, as a measure to improve
worker safety. It would go far beyond the current law, passed in 1995, which bans smoking
only in restaurants that seat more than 35 people and in office buildings.
The new legislation would ban smoking at every bar, restaurant and other indoor public
venue, as well as at outdoor cafes.
The mayor's health commissioner, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, said the new smoking law would be
analogous to other worker safety laws that resulted from the Triangle Shirtwaist factory
fire in 1911.
If such a law were passed, New York City would join two states �
California and Delaware � and scores of municipalities that ban smoking in just about
every workplace, including bars and restaurants. On Monday, the Nassau County Legislature
became the first in New York to vote to extend its ban on smoking to all bars,
restaurants, bowling alleys and bingo halls. Westchester and Suffolk Counties are
considering similar laws.
Any legislation less potent than Nassau's would be a
clear loss for the mayor, who has brought the same passion and commitment to this
legislation that he did to his crusade to gain control of the public school system during
the summer.
Ultimately, Mr. Bloomberg must persuade a minimum of 26 council members to see things his
way; the majority of the Council usually votes in lock step with its speaker, Gifford
Miller, who has been less than outspoken about his stand on the measure.
"I haven't made up my mind," Mr. Miller said yesterday.
New York Times
October 11, 2002
Smoking Issue Is Clear: The Other Side's Wrong
B y CLYDE HABERMAN ~ 11 October 2002
The defenders of virtue battled the forces of darkness at City Hall yesterday. The hard part was figuring out which was which.
If you were among those absolutely convinced that anyone holding a cigarette is New York's greatest health menace since Typhoid Mary, there was no question. The knight on the white horse was Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. He went before the City Council's Health Committee yesterday to explain why New York must reinvent Prohibition by outlawing smoking in all restaurants, bars, pool halls � you name it, even private clubs.
New York mayors appear at Council hearings only slightly more often than Halley's comet passes by, so you know this issue matters to Mr. Bloomberg at least as much as keeping his weekends private. He showed up armored in certitude. His proposed ban, he said, will save lives and no other position can possibly make sense except to troglodytes (who, he suggested, might well be in Big Tobacco's pocket).
On the other side were those ready to fit the mayor with a Darth Vader helmet. To them, he was just a super-rich man who, assured by his billions that he had life figured out, felt obliged to guide the less enlightened toward the path of righteousness. "Butt out," their T-shirts said.
There you had it, the battle of virtues: crusaders for clean lungs and fresh indoor air against champions of choice and the right of people to behave as stupidly as they want.
Ah, but smoking is different, said the mayor, a reformed sinner who gave up the weed years ago. Bars and restaurants are workplaces, he said. Smoking puts waiters and bartenders at risk, so it is government's duty to protect them, same as if asbestos was flaking from the ceiling. "All workers deserve a safe, healthy work environment," he said.
His position made no accommodation for the idea that bars and restaurants, not to mention private clubs, are hardly ordinary work places.
The average office or factory floor does not invite people to come in off the street, take off their coats and make themselves feel at home. Above all, a bar is a social setting, where the workers know going in that some customers are likely to puff away. Some bartenders no doubt hate and fear the second-hand smoke. But many couldn't care less. Many are smokers themselves. That, they will tell you, is their choice.
In conversations, some council members said they were troubled by a lord-of-the-manse tone that they detected. The mayor and his lieutenants had talked about how the main beneficiaries of his proposal would be black and Latino restaurant workers. "It was patronizing," one member said.
Nor did Mr. Bloomberg score many points when he assured bar owners that they would make more money with a ban on tobacco because "if people are not smoking, they'll probably be drinking more."
There was no reason to assume he understood workingmen's bars any better than the patrician Sargent Shriver did when he was running for vice president in 1972. Mr. Shriver, trying to show he was in touch with ordinary people, went to a South Boston bar and bought drinks for everyone. Then, asked what he himself would have, he said, "Courvoisier with a twist."
THE real question the Council must answer is what's wrong with the existing law, all of seven years old.
It basically eliminates smoking in most restaurants but also provides, with the owners' consent, that areas be set aside where committed degenerates may light up. There are thousands upon thousands of restaurants and bars here. Surely, the city has enough room for both those who cannot stand a wisp of smoke and those whose attitude toward nicotine is that it is dreadful but, as the French might say, chacun � son goo.
Instead, the trend now in city government is to tell New Yorkers how they must run their lives.
Think about the possibilities if the mayor's wish becomes law along with a separate bill in the Council requiring that restaurants and other public places install baby-changing stations. Think of an old-style steak joint where smoke and booze go hand in hand with arguments over whether Barry Bonds is the best ever, where everyone from owners to customers to workers like things just as they are.
This restaurant, and many like it, will be forced to keep you from smoking while making sure that you can diaper your newborn baby, who probably wouldn't, and shouldn't, be there in the first place.
And this, our civic elite would tell us, constitutes a well-ordered universe.
2 October 2002 - By DIANE CARDWELL
Relations between Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and some members of the City Council have
deteriorated to such an extent that Council leaders are warning that the mayor's prized
antismoking legislation may be in jeopardy.
From the beginning, Mr. Bloomberg has made it clear that extending the city's antismoking law to small restaurants, bars and bar areas was a deeply held personal policy goal, like gaining control of the school system. But although the administration quietly lined up support from a few council members before introducing the proposal, the speaker, Gifford Miller, has yet to sign on.
Relations between Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and some members of the City Council have
deteriorated to such an extent that Council leaders are warning that the mayor's prized
antismoking legislation may be in jeopardy.
Publicly, Council leaders say they are simply waiting for hearings and opinions from
all interested parties before enacting a potentially sweeping law. "We're in the
process of reviewing the legislation � there are some members who support it, there are
other members who have concerns," Mr. Miller said yesterday. "What you try to do
in this case is to strike the right balance, and you can't do that without having a
thoughtful and deliberative process."
But privately, council members and their aides say that the growing resentment over the
way Mr. Bloomberg approached the issue could stand in the way of the bill's passing.
"There is definitely a feeling that he's not handled this well," said
one council member, speaking on condition of anonymity. "He's a true believer and
can't recognize that many people, for valid reasons, might not be."
Council
aides have complained of impatient demands from the administration for hearings on the
smoking bill and threats that the mayor would campaign against members who did not support
the proposal.
And Mr. Bloomberg is taking the unusual step of recording radio
ads produced by the Health Department in support of his bill, a move that is not sitting
well with the Council. Asked about using the ads to promote his legislative agenda,
Mr. Bloomberg said: "I don't know what legislative agenda you're talking about. If
you mean saving people's lives, that is the Health Department's purpose. That's why
they're there."
Some council members said that the fate of the measure,
whether it passes, fails or is watered down, will depend in large part on how Mr.
Bloomberg is getting along with Mr. Miller.
"If Gifford were to sign off on
it, it would go," said another council member, also on condition of anonymity.
"I think this bill is predicated solely on the relationship between Gifford and the
mayor."
The relationship between the two may still be a work in progress, but
it already differs sharply from the one forged between the speaker and the mayor during
the the last administration. Although they were often natural adversaries, Mayor Rudolph
W. Giuliani and Peter F. Vallone, who was the speaker, had a close relationship and
frequently hammered out a legislative agenda at their meetings each Wednesday.
In
contrast, Mr. Miller and Mr. Bloomberg meet once every two weeks, and Mr. Bloomberg has
made it clear that he does not need Mr. Miller's help running the city, said people with
knowledge of the men's relationship.
Although there was a glint of warming
yesterday between the two men, things had not been going so well lately. There was the
sting of Mr. Bloomberg's failure to act quickly on Mr. Miller's term limits amendment.
The
administration's antismoking efforts were intense, even before the radio ads were
announced. The health commissioner, Thomas R. Frieden, said that by his own count, he had
met with at least a dozen council members. "I think people do understand that
secondhand smoke kills," Dr. Frieden said. "I think people do understand that
passing this legislation will save lives."
Even though many council members
are convinced by the health argument, they have other concerns. "I have enough of a
libertarian streak to think there are some limits to how much we should save people from
their own vices," said Councilman David Yassky of Brooklyn, who is also worried about
the effect on Williamsburg, home to many bars.
Councilman John Liu of Queens
remained noncommittal, but said that the law could have a disproportionate impact on
immigrant communities where the restaurants tend to be smaller.
Even some of those
who have signed onto the bill expect that it will not pass exactly as written. "On
the surface I think it's a good idea," said Councilman Jose Serrano of the Bronx.
"It may go too far on certain issues," he continued. "It has to be subject
to the long process of all of the hearings and negotiations on it."