Smoking Bans Are No Match for New Yorkers

Smoking in bars and restaurants has been banned in New York City since 2003 but Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently added beaches, parks, and pedestrian plazas to the long and growing list of places where smoking is verboten in the Big Apple. "Sin taxes" on cigarettes have driven the average price of a pack to more than $11.

Yet in a city renowned for its innovation and drive, smokers have found ways to work around government attempts at social engineering. These include the booming "loosie" trade, where street entreprenuers risk arrest to sell loose cigarettes for a dollar each on the streets of Manhattan; tobacco crops blooming in Brooklyn; and a thriving Soho bar/restaurant that survived the smoking ban thanks to an obscure grandfather clause.

With so much tax revenue being lost to the black market, and even the green market, perhaps it's time for a mayor who made billions in the free market to consider allowing business owners to set their own policies, and let the marketplace sort out the demand for smoking and smoke-free establishments.

Produced by Anthony L. Fisher.

About 4 minutes.

For downloadable versions of this video, links, and other supporting materials, go to http://reason.tv

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• smoking
• nyc
• bloomberg
• mayor
• smokeeasies
• ban
• smoking ban
• health
• liberty
• libertarian

[TheLegalImmigrant05]

The lady is right. If everyone truly wants the ban, let's repeal the fucking law and see how true that actually is: hoe many or few people will patronize bars that allow smoking.

[sharpshepherd]

Even though I quit smoking I totally support the right of people to decide their own fate and future. I support smokers and I would love to have a business like the owner featured in this piece.

[timemachine05]

To persuade the government to GRADUALLY decrease the nicotine in cigarettes, so that smokers don't suffer withdrawal and saving millions of lives, please visit robsspace.co.uk, thank you. Please thumbs up this so others also can, thank you.

[carnut666]

@csnu5

have you looked in a mirror recently? because you're coming off as a hateful, intolerant cunt yourself.

[zipvuvcof]

smoking is health terminator

[zipvuvcof]

thieves can take away your money but smokers take away years off your life. 

[zipvuvcof]

smokers should smoke in airtight room and feel what nonsmokers really feel. If smokers cannot recycle the contaminated air they should be heftily fined. 

[LokiV]

Smokers always know someone who smoked 80 a day (from the age of 10) and lived to be 100 years old!...and Doctors are always wronge!

[punkrockpub]

My middle finger is on display, in an upright fashion!! Exclusively for Mayor Michael Bloomberg!!! People should be able to enjoy their choices, instead of state intrusion!!!

[BellTollsForThee]

@csnu5

woah, i think you are making some strong general statements. Not all, and i would argue most are not as you have described.

_

Why i would argue that many of the smokers that the general non-smoking public interacts with are the very marginalized and threaten smokers who feel they must act so against the general public out of fear of oppression and social outcast.

[csnu5]

Notice how smokers have poor stress coping mechanisms? notice they cannot handle stress? notice they are a self centred bunch who are cold hearted mean spirited and are full of hatred and intolerance towards other people? They are so proud of themselves and so arrogant. ..pity on smokers..they have serious personal problems

[SuperEnterprise01]

Smokers suck butts!!