Letter to the Village Voice, March 5, 1997
March 5, 1997
Village Voice
50 Cooper So.
New York, NY 10003
editor@villagevoice.com
Of all the public ruminations on the recent nationwide cigar craze, Stasi's is certainly the loopiest. Most observers trace the trend not, strangely, to New York City's smoking ban, but directly to Marvin Shanken's "Cigar Aficionado" magazine, in combination with increasing health awareness and the resultant strictures. (Another strong factor is the ignorant belief--unchallenged by those profiting from the fad--of most 20-somethings that if they don't inhale they are somehow protected from nicotine's effects.)
But that NYC ban sure set Stasi off. She publicly made a "solemn pledge" to "smoke in as many restaurants and public places as possible" when the city's smoking ban went into effect (Daily News, March 6, 1995). Like the News piece, Stasi's "Up in Smoke" is half-diatribe, half fuzzy-headed snippets of unexamined info.
Case in point: "Members of the Empire State Restaurant & Tavern Association blame the smoking ban for the loss of 2779 NYC restaurant jobs"
A. Leaving aside how ESRTA differentiates between losses from bad food and losses from the smoking ban, restaurants don't stay open forever in a state of continuous expansion; jobs are lost every year, but since the smoking ban, the losses have been more than offset by the record-breaking number of _new_ restaurant jobs. The 1996 Zagat Restaurant Survey found that eating out had actually increased in the 6-month period since the smoking ban went into effect. Though smokers may go out less often, nonsmokers (75% of the population) go out more, now that they can be reasonably assured of a smokefree environment. 1995 saw a record number of restaurant openings, and a record low number of restaurant closings. Subsequent surveys have attested to the full health--as any New Yorker can see--of the restaurant industry since the ban, despite the dire forecasts of economic doom threatened by tobacco interests including ESRTA.
B. Most restaurateurs in this city had never heard of the "Empire State Restaurant & Tavern Association" (then the United Restaurant Hotel Tavern Association) until Scott Wexler came riding into town from Albany on a horse of Tobacco Institute money, buying up full-page newspaper ads and radio spots which claimed the smoking ban was wrong for "our city." To blindly quote anything from this organization is ignorant, shoddy reportage.
Stasi's other industry sources may be essentially correct--if ineptly expressed--but I suggest she begin looking for information from _outside_ the industry once in awhile.
But then, any resulting columns might anger your advertisers, and we don't want to punch holes in the budget at a time when tobacco ads in the Village Voice seem to be multiplying like lab rats. Better to keep the status quo, and if no one else can stomach touting the industry line--then hire a columnist from the Daily News to do it.
This is yet another example of the abject failure of the advertiser-driven model of journalism which has successfully hidden accurate information about tobacco from the public since 1938, allowing flat-earthers like Stasi to continue to spout drivel without having to face universal howls of derision. We'd be in a far different position today, and many of our neighbors and relatives would still be alive, if for the last 60 years publications had simply reported the truth.
This is not solely the shame of Voice, but the deep and everlasting shame of US journalism. Amazing how well the practice continues to work even to this day.
Gene Borio
Tobacco BBS
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