The skulkers in drafty doorways may thus be joined by affluent investment bankers in bow ties, who can no longer seek refuge in their oak-paneled lounges to enjoy a discreet cigar in a plush leather armchair–because the ban extends to the sanctuary of private clubs as well. An Englishman’s club may be his castle, but the New Yorker’s is now a smoke-free zone.
Europeans, especially, make fun of the ban. But really, Bloomberg’s got a point. It’s nice not to be choking on secondhand smoke–as I do too often when traveling. What about New Yorkers’ long-held right to do themselves harm? Not when it endangers others, retorts Hizzoner, who gave up smoking two decades back but reportedly celebrated a daughter’s birthday five years ago at the City Wine and Cigar Company. The link between tobacco and cancer is well established, and those willful enough (or dumb enough) to risk their own lives have no right to impose their vice on others.
The ban comes at a time when disapproval of smoking is virtually unanimous, even among smokers. Most who still puff do so in a combination of guilt and self-destructive defiance, as if to say, “I know what I’m doing is bad and stupid, but I can’t help myself.” The educational system has confirmed negative attitudes in the younger generation, much to the discomfiture of some adults. “I remember having to hide my cigarettes from my parents,” one friend ruefully remarks. “Now I have to hide them from my kids.” One day her 10-year-old son flung her cigarettes out the window. “I don’t want you to die,” he wailed. My friend was nonplussed. “Find me a mother with a good answer to that,” she says.
It’s been difficult in recent years to venture into the stairwells of many office buildings because of the reek from cigarettes smoked surreptitiously by addicts who didn’t have the time to go outdoors. For eight years now New Yorkers have been able legally to light up only in bars, in designated smoking areas at airports and railway stations and in restaurants with fewer than 35 seats. Those exceptions have ended with the new law. Open spaces–outdoor cafes, rooftop restaurants, terraces–are still exempt, however. There’s also always the privacy of your own home, though the last is by no means a guaranteed haven. A New York City co-op recently threatened to evict an apartment owner because his smoking was seeping under his neighbors’ doors and through their vents. In time-honored American fashion, he’s suing his co-op board. His neighbors await the verdict with (forgive me) bated breath.
What next? Already, illegal underground “smoking bars” are popping up surreptitiously in trendier downtown neighborhoods, not unlike the famous speak-easies during Prohibition. But personally, I’m betting on another turn of the screw in the great anti-tobacco crusade: a ban on smoking in the great outdoors. Why should people trying to enjoy the fresh air in Central Park have to have other people’s smoke in their noses as they take a walk? After all, this is New York. We never know when to stop.
