Sorry for cross-postings.

>
> Smoking Bill Is Adopted
> By DIANE CARDWELL
>
> After months of negotiations, more than 20 hours of public testimony and
> some of the most intense, heated debates of this administration, the City
> Council approved Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's antismoking bill yesterday
> at the last of its voting sessions this year.
> The bill passed 42 to 7 with 2 abstentions, an unusually large number of
> negative votes for a Council that tends to vote in lockstep with its
> leaders. It could become law around the end of March, depending on when
> Mr. Bloomberg actually signs it.
> Passage of the smoking measure, one of the nation's toughest, had been all
> but assured since council leaders reached an agreement last week with the
> Bloomberg administration. Nevertheless, advocates on both sides of the
> issue milled throughout the City Hall corridors for most of the day,
> waiting to see the vote of the Health Committee, then of the full Council.
> Speaker Gifford Miller said before the vote, "In my mind, we've worked
> hard to address the concerns that were raised by all sides, but ultimately
> this bill is about protecting the health of employees in the city of New
> York." He added, "Second-hand smoke is a dangerous toxic substance and
> employees shouldn't have to choose between their health and their jobs,
> and that's what this bill is focused on trying to accomplish, without
> punishing smokers."
> Nonetheless, a small band of diehard smokers, brandishing signs and
> shouting slogans about their rights being trampled by the legislation,
> puffed away outside in the cold, lounging next to a giant cigarette with a
> crude message to Mr. Bloomberg written on it.
> Inside, spirits also ran high. Over the course of about two hours, council
> members rose to tell personal stories of watching loved ones suffer with
> smoking-related illnesses, or to praise the leadership of Christine Quinn,
> the chairwoman of the Health Committee who shepherded the bill through the
> Council.
> The bill essentially bans indoor smoking, covering most bars, restaurants
> and buildings, but includes a host of controversial exemptions. Among the
> places exempted are a handful of cigar bars already in operation, bars
> with no employees except the owners, nonprofit membership clubs with no
> employees, and bars or certain health care facilities with enclosed
> smoking rooms.
> Promising more oversight and more legislation to protect all workers, Ms.
> Quinn said the bill was amended to focus it specifically "on
> establishments that have workers." Some council members objected to those
> provisions, as well as to other tobacco policies pursued by the Bloomberg
> administration, and voted against it.
> The smoking bill was not the only cause for dissension at a meeting that
> had the feel of the last day of final exams. A bill introduced by Philip
> Reed of Manhattan that prohibits the use of cellphones during public
> performances, which faces an uphill battle with the Bloomberg
> administration, passed 40 to 9 with 2 abstentions. Several members of the
> Black, Latino and Asian Caucus voted against an antiposter bill that is
> aimed at ending street eyesores but is thought by some members to squelch
> political expression. That bill passed 44 to 7.
>

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