June 26, 1995
Editor
New York Post
210 South St.
New York, NY 10002
Re: Smokers Still Fuming, Letters, June 17, 1995
As a letter-writer, Martha Perske can question the science on a round earth, or on anything she likes, but if she is privy to information which somehow has escaped others on the health effects of secondhand smoke, she should have come down from Connecticut and testified at one of the many hearings on the bill. She did not. Nor did any tobacco company. The rock-solid evidence on ETS remained utterly unrefuted in open testimony.
Despite Maurine Lynch's claim that "every customer . . .was happy with smoking sections," the hearings saw a long line of New Yorkers testify that most such sections simply don't work. The constant presence of wayward smoke keeps many people--especially those with lung ailments from going out to restaurants at all.
After hearing all the testimony, the City Council would have been derelict of duty not to pass the Smoke-free Air Act, and they did so by an overwhelming majority.
As a frequent restaurant-goer with friends in the industry, I see what most people see no problems at all. Virtually all the high-profile restaurants fighting the ban are what I consider tourist traps, with name or location, rather than food, as their draw. After the kind of publicity they have engendered for themselves in this tawdry matter, I donąt wonder if their business is going into the dumper.
I for one will no longer take out-of-towners to any of them. We have lots of great choices here, and we New Yorkers know that a much better time and finer meals can be had in any number of other excellent NYC restaurants restaurants whose owners don't pick and choose which health regulations they damn well feel like following.
Gene Borio
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