Tobacco Documents Online

The Times 28th Novcmbar 1995 .i'anc: 1 New Yorkers strike back at the ashtray police • FROM QU€\Tit\ LFTTS IN NFyv tORlC T1IE CITY which vit:ws liberty as its muse. which long welcomed the world's ctstoffs and suckled Ameri- ca's citiil rights movementm is eXperi- encing a new underground striggle. New York's smo_t,:rs. harried by lawma-kets and he:klcd by hea:th zcalots, are fighting back. New figures show that nimdne addicts ate ignoring the tough ar.ti- smol:in3 rules intrcxfuced earlier this year. Via ingcnuity, civil disobedience and complicity from nesMurlteursm they ut ovctnoming the rules described variously as "unworkable" and "dtamnian'. The dtys anti-smoldng churttcr. drafted in Aprt1 at the demand of professional health lobbyistt. outlaws smoking in most restaurants. Custom- ers lighting up post-dinner cigarettes have been assailed - by plainclothes health inspeaotsm and restaurateurs who failed to impose the law have been fined as much as S3.000 (f1,935). New York's Health Depariment has disclosed that of the 200 or so rsstaurants charged with failing to enforce the law. all but two initially ignored the fines. There has also been blithe abuse of the demand that tssosurants erect prominent "no smoY- ing" signs and leave eight-foot Yur btraks" between smoking and non- . smoldttg areas. Down on the front ~ line. the raids have occisionally dcscsnded to farct with inspectors ~ sei2ing watm ashtays as proof of 1aw• breaking and srtiffmg the air to test for the sartt of toba®. Anna Opitz manageress of the woist-offendIng tesmuranL Lucky Strika said:'?hese inspectors turn up looking like normai cutamers except for their little black briefoses. They stay for as much as an hour. I find it impossible to tell grawnyp pcople what to do, but it is depressing how~ other plsen ate following this law like sheep." •