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SF Considers Outdoor Smoking Ban

For cigarettes. Medical marijuana would be excluded.

Smoking anything other than medically-prescribed marijuana at San Francisco street fairs, festivals and other outdoor events held on city property would be banned under new legislation before the Board of Supervisors. Supervisor Eric Mar said he introduced the proposal because of the health impacts of secondhand smoke when people light up in public. “It’s widely known that secondhand smoke is responsible for as many as 73,000 deaths among non-smokers each year in the United States, and there is no safe level of exposure,” he said.

NYC already bans smoking in virtually all public spaces.

Bloomberg On Smoking, Part 2

"If you really intellectually start thinking about it, we protect people from hurting themselves, if they're trying to jump off a bridge we restrain them. Should you really do it with smoking? We're not gonna do it with smoking. Our job is to inform people and then let them make decisions based on the risks that they want to take and the way they want to live their lives. And we shouldn’t be telling you how to do that." - Michael Bloomberg, claiming that he's not looking to ban smoking itself. He's just made it illegal to smoke anywhere in New York City. Like on the sidewalks. In Times Square. At the beach. In parks. In bars and restaurants. And soon, in your own homes, the final frontier of Bloomberg's campaign.

NEW YORK CITY: Bloomberg Calls For Residential Buildings To Ban Smoking

In an effort to increase the number of residential New York City buildings that entirely ban tenants from smoking, Mayor Bloomberg today proposed a law that would require all such buildings to adopt formal written policies on where and if smoking is allowed.

"We think that people ought to know whether they might be exposed to second-hand smoke in their apartment before they decide whether to rent or buy," said Dr. Thomas Farley, commissioner of the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "We know that second-smoke can go from one apartment to the other and that it can get at levels that are high enough to have health risks." The proposal marks the latest effort by Mr. Bloomberg to combat tobacco use in the city and around the globe. The bill specifically does not dictate whether buildings should allow or disallow smoking. But it would require buildings to develop policies that address whether smoking is permitted in both indoor and outdoor locations, including lobbies, balconies, courtyards, laundry rooms and, most controversially, individual apartments.

Some apartment owners worry that such building-wide bans would reduce the saleability of their units. (Legislation similar to that proposed by Bloomberg is already in place in Maine and Oregon.) The percentage of smoking New Yorkers has plummeted under Bloomberg's decade-long reign, mostly due to city tax increases that have pushed the price of a single pack to around $15. Another cigarette tax hike is anticipated before Bloomberg leaves office in 2013.

Nicotine Test For Hospital Employees

If you want to get a job at Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania, you'll have to submit to a test for nicotine use. If you test positive, you don't get the job.

"This is just the next step in creating a tobacco-free environment and it's just an effort to focus on the well-being of our employees," said Geisinger spokeswoman Marcy Marshall. All Geisinger facilities have been tobacco-free since 2007. Ms. Marshall said Geisinger's new policy was a year in the making, and is modeled after one established at The Cleveland Clinic. She said some of the staff understand why Geisinger is taking a more aggressive stance on tobacco use, and some even welcome the new policy. There are others, though, who are worried. "I'm sure what's going through their minds is, 'How is this going to affect me down the line?'" Ms. Marshall said.

Next up: a test for evidence of french fries.

Life Expectancy Rises For New Yorkers

According to a just-published report, New Yorkers are now living longer than the national average. Mayor Bloomberg is taking credit, citing his long-running campaigns against smoking and obesity.

The life expectancy for babies born in New York City reached 80.6 years in 2009, the highest level recorded and one that surpasses the national life expectancy rate, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Tuesday. Life expectancy for 40-year-olds in the city also increased, to 82 years in 2009 from 79.5 years in 2000, a gain of 2.5 years, compared with an increase of 1.2 years for the same age group nationwide. New Yorkers who are 70 saw their life expectancy increase 1.5 years, to 86.9, compared with 0.7 years, to 85.1, for the same age group nationwide. “If you have friends and relatives that you deeply care about and they live elsewhere, on average if they move to New York City, they will live longer,” the mayor said.

The above-linked New York Times article pointedly refutes Bloomberg's claim of credit, noting that a large portion of the increase is due to the plummeting rate of AIDS-related deaths.

Smoking Rate Plummets In NYC

The greatest legacy of Michael Bloomberg's reign as NYC mayor may be the city's nose-diving number of adult smokers, a reduction widely credited to frequent cigarette tax increases, fewer places to smoke legally, and the city's unforgettably gruesome anti-smoking commercials. The total number of smokers has decreased by an estimated 500,000 since Bloomberg took office. Meanwhile, a pack of cigarettes currently sells for $13-$15 in Manhattan.

NYC Condo Tower Bans Smoking

The residents of an Upper West Side condo tower have voted to ban smoking in their building, even if the unit owner has been doing so for years. It's the city's first such retroactive ban in a residential building.

Even smokers who moved into the building, the Ariel West, before the ban must abide by it. The building is one of the first in the city to approve such an extensive ban. (Several rental buildings introduced bans last year, but established tenants who smoked were not affected.) Owners in the building, a 32-story glass tower at Broadway and 99th Street, voted 47 to 3 to approve the ban late last month. There are 68 owners in total; 46 votes constituted the supermajority required to change the bylaws. “Even though people bought into this building thinking they could smoke,” said Gideon Stein, the president of the condo board at Ariel West, “people do not have a constitutional right to smoke.”

Enforcement of the ban will be performed by busybody old ladies, who will prowl the halls sniffing out infractions.

NYC Bans Smoking In Public

Parks, beaches, Times Square....

No Smoking For NYC's Parks & Beaches

Today NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg will announce a complete ban on smoking in city parks and on city beaches.

After months of considering the issue, Mayor Bloomberg will today announce that the city will institute a smoking ban in parks and on beaches, sources said. The new ban requires City Council approval, which seems assured since the mayor will be joined at the announcement by Council Speaker Christine Quinn. In the past, Bloomberg expressed concerns about the logistics of such a ban, mostly because of the size of the enforcement area. But Health Commissioner Tom Farley has been pushing for the ban for months. "[Bloomberg] was undecided, and now he's made the decision to go ahead," said a source.

Bloomberg banned smoking in bars early in his first term.

NEW YORK CITY: M2 Club To Reopen

After closing them in March for smoking ban violations, NYC's Health Department will allow M2 Ultra Lounge to reopen.

The Chelsea hotspot must pay $7,500 in fines and submit a plan to the city detailing how it will stop patrons from lighting up. It was one of several clubs busted in a Health Department undercover sting in January. Undercover inspectors said they found dozens of smokers puffing away in plain sight and bathroom attendants selling loose cigarettes for $2 a pop. "Our main goal was to get M2 to take their obligations under the law seriously, and we achieved that," Health Department spokeswoman Erin Brady said yesterday. "After the case was brought, M2's enforcement of indoor smoking drastically changed. That was the real victory for us."

M2 is one of the handful of remaining NYC dance clubs of a decent size and is the largest to regularly host gay dance parties. Last month's gay pride edition of the popular Alegria party was relocated to Times Square's Nokia Theater due to M2's closure.

NYC Moves Closer To Shuttering M2 Nightclub Over Smoking Violations

The New York Times reports today that the city is one step closer to shuttering the popular M2 Ultralounge nightclub over smoking law violations. The club is on trial this week. If the closure happens, it will be the first NYC business shut down because of smoking.

The Bloomberg administration is moving closer to shutting one of the largest and busiest nightclubs in the city, as part of an aggressive new strategy to revoke the operating licenses of clubs that health officials believe promote smoking. The nightclub, the M2 UltraLounge on West 28th Street in Manhattan, went on trial last week at a special administrative court that the city uses when it seeks to take away property. If the case against the club succeeds, it would be the first time the city had closed a business solely for flouting a ban on smoking. City officials have also moved to take several other clubs before the court, seeking to revoke their food and beverage licenses. It has been an open secret for years among the late-night set that there is a network of so-called smoke-easies throughout the city, from little neighborhood dives to glossy, exclusive boîtes, that let patrons smoke illegally.

Five nightclubs have already settled with the city and paid fines, an option not offered to M2 Ultralounge as it is considered to be the most blatant violator. The trial is expected to conclude on Thursday. If the club loses, it's not clear if it will be closed immediately. This Sunday it hosts Alegria Extreme, the tenth annual post-Black Party event that draws thousands of gay men.

Clubs Survive NYC's Nightclub Smoking Crackdown (But Not The Gay-ish One)

It looks like four of the five NYC nightclubs set to be closed down for smoking violations have struck deals to live another day. Not surviving the city's wrath is Chelsea's M2 Ultra Lounge megaclub, host to the city's largest gay dance parties.

The Health Department's top lawyer sat down with reps for M2 Ultra Lounge in Chelsea after he said undercover inspectors caught patrons lighting up again and again. "We made it clear we will go forward and we are not interested in making a deal," said city lawyer Thomas Merrill. "I'm not going to do that when I'm not confident they can't commit to the Smoke-Free Air Act." M2 is the worst violator in the city. Evidence against M2 Ultra Lounge obtained by The News includes testimony and photographs of bouncers chatting with cigar smokers, cigarettes for sale in bathrooms and waitresses serving drinks to people with lit cigarettes in hand.

M2 is next door to the NYC Eagle, which has a dedicated smoking area on its roof and has not been cited in this latest campaign.

NYC To Close Down Clubs Over Smoking

This week NYC announced plans to close down at least five clubs for violating the city's ban on indoor smoking. Included on the list of clubs to lose their liquor licenses is Chelsea's massive M2 Ultra Lounge (formerly Mansion, formerly Studio Mezmor, formerly Crobar), which is host to numerous gay dance parties including the popular Alegria circuit party events. M2 is arguably the largest Manhattan venue still holding regularly scheduled gay dance parties.

The Health Department is moving to shutter five A-list clubs after an undercover sting showed they let their high-flying clientele light up inside again and again. The velvet-rope violators include TheBox on the lower East Side and Chelsea's M2 Ultra Lounge, which just last week hosted Sean (Diddy) Combs' blowout bash for his son's 16th birthday, officials said. The clubs are scheduled to appear today before a city tribunal, where officials will try to yank their food and beverage permits - a fatal blow that would put the kibosh on alcohol sales. The move is by far the city's most aggressive attempt to crack down on bars and clubs that turn a not-so-blind eye when their customers crave a smoke.

According to investigators, M2 Ultra Lounge is the city's worst violator, with cigarettes even on sale in the club's restrooms.