THE word on the street – and in backrooms around town – is that the smoking ban is losing its teeth.
If you use a little discretion, puffing is increasingly likely to be quietly ignored – especially after the mayor’s butt patrol goes home at 11 p.m.
“I have noticed more flare-ups taking place, especially later at night,” says Michael Musto, the veteran night-life columnist for the Village Voice.
“Certain establishments are . . . turning a blind eye, and I think they’re seeing their business going up as a result.”
When I confessed to one bar owner I’d been lighting up in his club in the wee hours, he admitted looking the other way. “People out late expect to be able to smoke – and they do,” he said. “And you know what? There aren’t a lot of 311 callers around at 1 a.m.”
To test that theory, I lit up in 10 Manhattan night spots.
WEST VILLAGE PUB
Time: 8 p.m.
Sitting at a table in a popular pub, I openly light a cigarette.
Within seconds a barmaid pounces on me. “What the hell are you doing?” she screams. “This is New York City! You can’t smoke inside! Get out!!”
I ham up my British accent and eventually she lets me back in the bar – sans smokes.
WEST VILLAGE RESTAURANT
Time: 9 to 10 p.m.
Ah, the joy of private rooms!
Sitting with my group in a little booth at the back of this trendy restaurant, no one bothers me when I light up. A friend tells me a week later that when her friends started smoking there, the waitress told them to go ahead and smoke.
The truth is, if you smoke, you should already know a place where you can have a cigarette along with your drink. And if you don’t, it’s not that hard to find one.
CHELSEA LOUNGE
Time: 10 p.m.
As a hostess leads me to my table, she says sweetly: “Please don’t smoke” – a blanket warning she hands out to everyone who walked in.
“If you do I will be forced to get very, very angry. The smoking lounge,” she says, pointing at the door, “is that way.”
By 11:15 p.m., so many people are smoking around us, my pal and I decide to risk it.
After our second cigarette a burly bouncer appears and demands the cigarette be extinguished.
EAST VILLAGE MUSIC CLUB
Time: 10:30 p.m. to midnight
I risk a cigarette on the dance floor, hidden from detection by the crowd. Then another sitting down, where I can hide it beneath a table.
As the beers go down, I get bolder and start smoking right at the bar. On smoke No. 2, a bouncer taps me on the shoulder.
“I don’t want to have to throw you out, so please put the cigarette out,” he says.
It’s gone.
MIDTOWN PUB
Time: 11 p.m.
One of my regular smoking haunts, this place benefits from having two rooms. In the back room, there will always be a few people smoking a sly cigarette or two over the course of the night.
I’m usually one of them – and I have yet to be asked to stop.
WEST VILLAGE NIGHTCLUB
Time: 11:30 p.m.
Quite a few people are smoking, so my friend and I light up ourselves.
When a hostess comes to ask what we’d like to drink, she doesn’t mention the smokes, which we hold under the table.
MIDTOWN PUB
Time: Midnight onwards
I’ve known about this smoke-easy since the ban kicked in.
There’s a routine here: Around midnight, someone will produce a pack of cigarettes, take one out and casually play with it – maybe even hold it between his or her lips.
The bartender will usually offer a few words of consent.
And when he puts out a few glasses half-full of water (ashtrays, as smokers now know, are what attract the wrath of the smoking police) and the first cigarette is lit, within minutes the place turns into one great cloud.
The bartender says he lets his clients do it for the tips.
“Who’s going to stay here till 3 a.m. if they can’t smoke?” he said, pointing to his pile of singles.
It’s just like 2002 all over again.
MIDTOWN NIGHTCLUB
Time: 12:15 to 1:45 a.m.
The smell of smoke assails us as we walk in. Plenty of people are smoking shamelessly at the bar. I puff away until we leave – and no one says a thing.
CHELSEA LOUNGE
Time: 1 to 2 a.m.
It looks pretty smoke-free in here – until I discover a room in the back from which the tell-tale smell of smoke emanates. I park myself in an unobtrusive corner and light up. No one bothers me.
When I ask the owner about it a few days later, he says: “Look, I don’t want people smoking here because I could get shut down. But it’s unenforceable. Either I have my staff run around all night and fight with them, or you just deal with it. To be honest, it’s a complete nightmare.”
CHINATOWN PARTY
Time: 11:30 p.m. to 3:45 a.m.
This party, which I heard about over e-mail, is on the fourth floor of a tenement building and costs 10 bucks to get in. There is a license pinned to the walls but otherwise, it looks like a gathering of dubious legality.
Quite a few people are smoking so I figure it’s safe to light up.
Suddenly I’m the most popular guy there. So many people ask me for cigarettes that at 1 a.m. I have to run out to the deli to restock.
