Smoking in Manhattan

Stefan Geens, a man whose description of his blog on nycbloggers.com

starts with the sentence "free trade is good," has gone decidedly

off Milton Friedman’s deep end in his latest post.

It reminds me of the old joke: How many Chicago School economists does

it take to change a lightbulb? None: if the bulb needed changing, the

market would have done it already.

In Stefan’s conception, if 75% of New Yorkers wanted non-smoking bars

and restaurants, then 75% of bars and restaurants would be non-smoking.

Since this hasn’t happened, then any poll which shows such a thing must

be "a load of bollocks".

Before getting on to the reasons why Stefan’s argument is a load of

bollocks, let me point him first of all to the relevant press

release from the New York City Coalition for a Smoke Free City,

and also to the New York Times article

(linked to from stefangeens.com, of all places) which says that 76%

of the 7,000 members of the New York Restaurant Association favour a

law banning smoking in bars and restaurants. Stefan wonders whether

the former poll might not have made it clear that restaurants and bars

were considered workplaces; the press release clearly states that the

question was about "all workplaces, including offices, restaurants

and bars".

In fact, it’s easy to see both how 75% of New Yorkers might want smoke-free

bars, Stefan’s own personal opinion to the contrary notwithstanding,

and also to see how the mere desire for such things might not be sufficient

to bring them into existence.

First things first: Non-smokers like smoke-free bars for reasons which

everybody knows. But if you go to LA, where smoke-free bars are the

law, you’ll even find a lot of smokers lauding them. Were they common

before the law was passed? No. Here are some reasons why not:

• The relative force of the prohibition. If smokers aren’t allowed

  to smoke by law, they won’t. But if an individual bar decides to go

  unilaterally non-smoking, it’s likely to be on the receiving end of

  a lot of smokers’ complaints.

• The fact that most groups of friends include smokers, who are hooked

  to a highly addictive substance; furthermore, their addiction seems

  only stronger when it’s combined with drinking. In short, smokers’ desire

  to smoke in bars is a lot stronger than non-smokers’ desire to drink

  in non-smoking bars.So a group of smokers and non-smokers will inevitably

  go to a smoking bar if given the choice. Only if the smokers have

  to step outside to light up, will they.

• The fact that Beautiful People, the trend-setters with the white American

  Express cards who most bars want to attract, tend to be much more likely

  to smoke. And non-smokers, who have lived all their lives in a city

  with smoking bars, have shown themselves more than willing to go to

  such places. So switching from smoking to non-smoking status carries

  quite a large downside (the loss of the smokers and their friends) with

  very little upside (the extra patronage of the boring types who seek

  out non-smoking bars, should such people actually exist).

Basically, it seems as though Stefan has confused the desire for New

York to ban smoking in bars with a desire to go to non-smoking bars, given

the choice. It’s a subtle difference, but an important one: I’m sure that

most of the 75% would rather go to a cool bar with smoking than an uncool

bar without it. But they’d prefer even more to go to a cool bar without

smoking, which is only going to happen if a law is passed. That’s why

they want the law!

Personally, I’m agnostic on the issue of whether I prefer smoking or

non-smoking bars. I’ve been to good exemplars of both. But the way Mike

Bloomberg is presenting this, my own preference is not really the point.

If I don’t want smelly clothes and red eyes, I don’t need to go to bars

in the first place. Bloomberg’s point, which I think is unarguable, is

that bar proprietors and staff are seriously harmed by second-hand smoke:

his proposed law would exist primarily to protect them.

All manner of workplace-safety laws are on the books already, for very

good reason. The way I see it, this is another law of that ilk. Bartenders

have to work in the smokiest sections of the smokiest bars for eight hours

a night, up to six nights a week. That’s a horrible workplace condition,

even if the bartender is a smoker. I predict that if this law goes into

force, there will be a lot of grumbling for a few months, and then people

will realise that they actually prefer it the new way, while bars will

realise that they’ve lost no custom. The population will be healthier,

bartenders will be happier, and everyone will win. Especially the bar

owners with gardens.