Ferrer Will Take A Powder on Ban On Smoking

Even if Mayor Bloomberg should lose his bid for re-election in November, the city’s smoking ban is unlikely to be rescinded. The Democratic front-runner in the mayoral race, Fernando Ferrer, does not intend to overturn the city’s smoking ban, a spokeswoman told The New York Sun.“Fernando Ferrer will not overturn the ban, but he will examine it to assess whether it is being implemented fairly,” the campaign spokeswoman, Jennifer Bluestein, said. “We’ll look and see whether it has been effective.”In a field of five potential Democratic candidates, Mr. Ferrer has consistently held double-digit leads over his closest rival in voter surveys. The former Bronx borough president is considered the man to beat in the Democratic primary, and polls put him neckand-neck in a November matchup with the mayor.The mayor’s 2-year-old ban on smoking inside the city’s bars and restaurants has been an unpopular initiative among managers of New York’s nightlife establishments. Mr. Bloomberg has been steadfast on the issue, saying most New Yorkers appreciate his crackdown, which has created smoke-free places to eat, drink, and work.The question of whether Mr. Ferrer would consider rolling back the ban came after an analysis of his campaign donations found that a roster of cigar companies had donated about $25,000 to his mayoral campaign. News of the donations was reported over the weekend by the Financial Times.The publisher of Cigar Aficionado magazine, Marvin Shanken, helped arrange donations from at least eight cigar companies, according to campaign finance records. Mr. Shanken did not return repeated phone calls from the Sun for comment.The records do show, however, that he led the fund-raising and was listed as the “intermediary” for more than $25,000 in donations, largely from people in the cigar industry. Some employees of Mr. Shanken’s publishing company, including one of his executive editors, Gordon Mott, also contributed to Mr. Ferrer’s campaign.Among the donors listed are the president and chief executive of General Cigar in New York, Edgar Cullman Jr. The company manufactures cigars and runs the city’s premier cigar barn, Club Macanudo, at East 63rd Street and Madison Avenue. His father, Edgar Cullman Sr., chairman of General Cigar Holdings, personally donated $1,000 to the Ferrer effort, the filings show. He is joined by the president of Tabacalera A Fuente y Cia, Carlos Fuente, Holt’s Cigar Co. of Philadelphia, and executives from Altadis USA, a Florida cigar company, the campaign filings show.Both the city and the state have enacted strict smoking bans that basically make restaurants and bars a smoke free zone. According to figures from the mayor’s office, in the 12 months since the ban took effect in 2003, the number of adult smokers in New York declined by 11%. A Quinnipiac survey taken a year after the ban went into force found 59% support for the ban.With those kinds of numbers, a political consultant, George Arzt, said, it is not surprising that Mr. Ferrer doesn’t see a political advantage in turning back the statute.“Maybe eventually the ban could be rolled back on the periphery, where people will be allowed to have a smoking room at some point in the future,” Mr. Arzt said. “Look at all the people who are outside restaurants and bars smoking, it only amounts to a handful of people, so at this point, there is no reason to come out against it.”Mr. Bloomberg proposed the smoking ban soon after he came into office, saying that those lighting up in the city’s offices, bars, and restaurants were infringing on workers’ rights. He said the ban was a way to protect the health of waiters and bartenders forced to breathe in secondhand smoke during their regular workday.According to the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, restaurant workers are 50% more likely to have lung cancer than other workers, even after taking their own smoking habits into account.A study released by the New York Nightlife Association and the Empire State Restaurant and Tavern Association found that about 2,000 jobs were lost in the restaurant and bar industry in the first year the ban was in effect. It calculated that $28.5 million in lost wages and $37 million in lost gross state product also resulted from the prohibition.At this point, it appears that if Mr. Ferrer became mayor, the groups would be unlikely to get the relief they seek.

Ferrer Will Take A Powder on Ban On Smoking

Ferrer Will Take A Powder on Ban On Smoking

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