June 10, 1994
New York Post
210 South St.
New York, NY
"The city's restaurants were up in arms yesterday about a City Council proposal to further restrict smoking in public places," was the lead line in Claudia Carpenter and David Seifman's June 7 article on the hearings before the Health Committee on the Smokefree Air Act.
The statement is a flat lie, and a flagrant attempt to manufacture opinion. From your biased and inaccurate article, a reader would never have guessed that most restaurant owners (along with an overwhelming majority of ordinary New Yorkers) not only strongly supported the ban, but many actually urged in all fairness that it be made more strict.
What really happened at the hearing? According to Joe Cherner's testimony, Philip Morris called 4,000 restaurateurs last week. They got three. Without being lobbied by a $50 billion company, the other side got nine. Three restaurateurs spoke against the ban; nine spoke for the ban--several urging an all-out ban with no exemption for restaurants with under 50 seats.
The restaurateurs unequivocally for the ban included the owners of America, the Four Seasons, 65C, Capsouto Frere Bistro, El Rio Grande, the Union Square Cafe, the Four Seasons, Tavern on the Green, O'Neal's at Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Cafe, the Museum Cafe, the Louisiana Bar & Grill, and the Rolling Roaster Restaurant. Although some wanted a ban for health and moral reasons, other restaurateurs just seemed to want an end to the hassle, and a level playing field.
In all, eleven people or groups spoke against the ban, including the Tobacco Institute and "Healthy Buildings."
In all, seventy-five people or groups spoke in support of the ban. Your report completely ignored the massive amount of testimony from doctors in the field, health organizations, laryngectomy victims, cancer victims, people with respiratory illnesses or allergies, and many others who made up a long, long line of people who don't go out to eat because it's too hard to find a restaurant that can keep the smoke out of their food and lungs.
Several people brought attention to tobacco industry front groups and tactics used in similar battles in Beverly Hills and Bellflower, California and in Vermont. Stanton Glantz concluded his short and hilarious examination of one tactic with, "This claim of a 30% drop in sales is known in science as . . . a lie."
When Tobacco Institute representatives tried to denigrate (with no evidence) sales-tax studies that refute their "survey" claims, Chair Enoch Williams roundly criticized them. Applause thundered through the hearing for well over a minute.
In fact, most anti-ban speakers seemed as feeble as the owner of the Pen & Pencil, whom you cited in your article without mentioning the pitiful denoument of his testimony. He had begun by saying that the present restrictions work just fine--embarranssing enough when dozens of people after him chose to contradict his statement. But in an acutely mortifying exhange, he also said that he didn't believe second hand smoke was a health hazard. When asked by the Council chair if he had any evidence to support this opinion, he seemed shocked, and when asked again if he had any information to impart to the panel on this subject, he meekly replied, "No." He then mercifully was allowed to leave the stand, his ignorance and silliness exposed.
Expecting the divisiveness and acrimony of 1988's hearings, I was shocked at how united New Yorkers were on this issue, and I had a new awareness of how many people might start coming to restaurants again if they could be assured of a smokefree environment.
Barring political interference, passage of the bill--or a stronger version--seemed mandated by the mass of testimony at the hearing. Contrary to your writers' lead line, and the articles' accompanying "street interview" segment, I came from the hearing with the surprisingly clear, unmistakable impression that the vast majority of New Yorkers are ready, willing and determined to make the ashtray go the way of the spittoon.
***********************
***********************
Go To: Tobacco BBS HomePage / Resources Page / Health Page / Documents Page / Culture Page / Activism Page
***********************
Return to Communications from the Front
***********************