Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

New Yorkers, listen up: If you oppose the mayor's proposed ban on smoking in all workplaces -- this means designated smoking areas in offices, all bars, and all restaurants -- contact your city councilperson and the mayor's office. I did, and I received a note back from my councilman, Marty Golden, that he plans to vote against this legislation, but that he feels strongly that there needs to be a grass roots movement to prevent it from passing.

Hey, I don't expect it to be legal to smoke just anywhere; I mean, movie theaters, airplanes, elevators, poorly ventilated restaurants -- these are not good places for smoking. I appreciate that. But a bar, especially one with a smoke eater, is a perfectly fine place for people to smoke. I mean, the entire object of a bar is to poison yourself. And what's the point of this new ban? If a bar owner or restaurant owner (with less than 35 seats) wants to either allow or disallow smoking, he or she can do that. A person who doesn't want to be around smoke can not go to places that allow it. It's not like there is a shortage of places to go in this city. But criminalize smoking in bars, and that's discrimination. Worse, it encourages membership clubs, which breeds even more discrimination. Even if I didn't smoke anymore, I'd be disgusted by this.

So, please let Mike know how you feel (hey, even if you're for it -- make your voice heard), and hunt down your councilperson (you should make sure you know who he or she is anyway!). Stand up for a person's right to risky behavior!