The NY Press analyzes the effects of the smoking ban and comments on the city's decision to allow cops to moonlight as security guards at bars and restuarants, "patrolling the sidewalks to keep the smokers in line": "But what about bar patrons, who are being forced onto the sidewalks by the law in the first place? Now we re gonna get out there in compliance with the law, only to run into more law? Before the law was enacted, smoking drunks were contained within four walls and behind closed doors. No one had to see or hear us. Now the law has forced us to become a bunch of free range smoking drunks, out there getting in people's way, messing up the sidewalk and annoying the neighbors. Which is better?"
The old woman who swallowed a fly [NY Press]