Advocates of tougher anti-smoking laws, and bar owners jittery about the economic consequences of a total smoking ban, get their first chance to sound off today at a City Council hearing.
The hearing is billed as an assessment of the city’s 5-year-old Smoke-Free Air Act.
But insiders say it could be a precursor of a monumental fight to come over another proposal, advanced last year to ban all smoking in bars, restaurants and private offices.
Current law prohibits smoking in most public spaces — but exempts bars, restaurants with fewer than 35 seats, and individual offices.
Health Department inspectors handed out 751 violations in the fiscal year ended last June 30, compared to 895 the previous fiscal year.
Bar and restaurant owners, especially in Queens, have begun mounting an all-out campaign to keep the status quo.
In a full-page ad in last week’s Irish Voice, they warned that “the Coalition for a Smoke-Free New York wants the City Council and Speaker Vallone to shut your doors” by banning all smoking.
“It will be the death knell of the neighborhood bar,” warned Ciaran Staunton, owner of O’Neill’s at 729 Third Ave.
He said neighborhood bars in San Francisco, which enacted a total ban in 1998, have seen their business plummet 30 percent.
But Joe Cherner, policy chairman of the Coalition for a Smoke-Free New York, said sales-tax figures show just the opposite in most restaurants.
“The other side always has owners saying revenues are down 25 percent. It’s not anything scientific. It’s not even the truth,” said Cherner.