Mayor Bloomberg wants New York to go cold Turkey - and he's already got the city twitching. His proposal would ban smoking in all workplaces, bars and restaurants included. No more hazy clubs in Harlem - no more sophisticates' stogies in midtown - no more smog-choked cafes in SoHo.
Some say that's like pulling Vermeer out of the Frick Collection... "this is New York City - we breathe danger every day." Public health experts are cheering the mayor's resolve, but many in the bar business argue that second-hand concerns are luxuries in tough economic times.
While smokers hold their breath - the national anti-smoking lobby and big tobacco companies are watching carefully - realizing that a ban in Manhattan will stand as an example across the nation. Smoke signals from Gotham.
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David Saltonstall City Hall bureau chief for the New York Daily News
Diane Stover, Chief of pulmonary medicine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Art Spiegelman, artist, author, and consulting editor of the New Yorker
Kelly Carona, a bartender at "Big Bar" at the Lower East Side
Steven Sherman, a bartender at Houston's Restaurant, Park Ave New York City.
