April 30, 2003
JOE QUEENAN writes that the
JOE QUEENAN writes that the main victims of New York's smoking ban are non-smokers:
The immediate effect was to force legions of angry, drunken smokers out into the streets where they could congregate in large angry circles and keep everybody in the neighbourhood awake until three o’clock in the morning complaining about not being able to smoke inside any more. New York City used to have a lot of bars. Now it is a bar.
Anyone unfortunate to live anywhere near a bar or a restaurant - in other words, every other resident of Manhattan - has been plagued by the late-night carcinogenic clatches outside the city’s 13,000 bars and restaurants.
All of them should march down to the Mayor's house and, as the saying goes, smoke him out. Then, as another saying goes, beat him up. And, to quote yet another, less well-known saying, attach him to a medievel catapult and fling him into Jersey.
Posted by Tim Blair at April 30, 2003 01:20 PM