By Kim Velsey 5/14 3:26pm

up in smoke

Smokers lose even more places to light up. (needoptic, flickr)

So Much For Enjoying the Nice Weather With a Cigarette

Poor smokers! Forced to shiver outside with chilly, chapped fingers all winter long, and then when the weather finally improves, New York announces that it will be expanding its state park smoking ban.

The ban on smoking in some areas of state parks had a rocky start (the state suspended it temporarily after smokers’ rights groups threatened to sue) and the legal challenge is, in fact, ongoing, But apparently, New York State is feeling very cocky, not only moving forward with the ban, but extending it to even more parks. Now smokers will only be able to suck fresh air into their damaged lungs when they visit one of the city’s parks. Or, the skin particle-laden air that passes for fresh in New York City. Read More

By Kim Velsey 12/17/12 2:55pm

Smoked Out

Those were the days: Pianist Willie "the Lion" Smith smoking in his NYC apartment in 1947.

Bloomberg Offers Cash to Community Groups Who Convince Buildings to Go Smoke Free

It’s been a few months since we’ve heard anything about Mayor Bloomberg’s war on smoking, so we should have known that something was brewing. Especially since our health czar had uncharacteristically long spell of down time—the soda ban passed in September—in his crusade to force New Yorkers to lead healthier lives.

Well, The New York Post reports that Mr. Bloomberg has been planning a secret assault on smoking this whole time. Well, sort of. He’s offering community groups who convince buildings to go smoke-free a $10,000 thank-you, to be paid out by a Centers for Disease Control grant. Read More

By Kim Velsey 5/29/12 4:14pm

Smoked Out

One smoker can take up the torch again (Dale M. Moore, flickr)

Man Wins Bid To Continue Smoking In His Own Apartment

It may be a small victory in a losing war, but at least José Arozamena can come home tonight, light up a cigarette and take a long, celebratory draw.

A judge has ruled that Mr. Arozamena, who lives at 260 Park Avenue South, can continue to light up in his apartment, the Post reports.

The condo board may have been emboldened by Mayor Bloomberg’s most recent move to kick smoking in the butt, but they were a little overzealous. After all, the mayor’s proposed legislation would only have required formal smoking policies and disclosures, not full-out bans. Read More

By Kim Velsey 5/11/12 12:47pm

Smoked Out

The neighbors are not fans (AMagill, flickr)

No Smoking! Majority of New Yorkers Like Smoke-Free Living

The majority of New Yorkers would actually like to live in smoke-free buildings, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll, they just don’t like Mayor Bloomberg telling them what to do.

Although 59 percent of New Yorkers told pollsters that they wanted to live in a building where no one was allowed to smoke, another 53 percent thought that city hall shouldn’t pressure co-ops, condos or apartment buildings to ban smoking. Read More

By Drew Grant 3/13/12 3:08pm

up in smoke

No smokes for you!

New York City Rolls Up More Lawsuits on Loose Tobacco Establishments

Well, we knew this was coming. Back in November, the city of New York filed a lawsuit against Island Smokes for avoiding the state’s high cigarette tax by allowing customers to roll their own tobacco in-store.

While selling loose tobacco and not paying the cigarette tax isn’t illegal, the lawyer for the city’s corporation council affirmative litigation division, Eric Proshansky, declared that by helping patrons make their own cigs in the establishments, the stores were allowing people to leave with a finished product and thus circumventing the tax. So the question was:  is a cigarette indeed more than the sum of its part?

Apparently so, since the city has decided to go after two more shops. Today the New York City Corporation Counsel and Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman  launched a joint filing against tobacco stores BB’s Corner n Brooklyn and Nitecap Entertainment on Staten Island, for violating “the Federal Contraband Cigarette Trafficking Act, the New York State Cigarette Marketing Standards Act, and New York State tax law.” Read More

By Drew Grant 9/23/11 11:35am

Smoked Out

Vile habit, that.

The UES WASP Guide to Smoking

New York is pretty much a no-smoking zone right now, one in which all of us puffers are living in our own private Joseph Heller — a world where it’s legal to buy cigarettes and sometimes even smoke them, but where one finds themselves increasingly admonished and ostracized for doing so. Katie Couric, for instance, will tell you that you’re not attractive if you stink of tobacco. Our dream woman, gone forever because we can’t kick our nicotine fix.

And yes, we understand that it’s a nasty, smelly habit. But you know what else is? Taking it upon yourself to be the self-righteous Thought Police for the “Smell Flowers Not Smoke” campaign, as UES blogger Reggie Darling has done. Read More