Working Poor

Harvard World Health News alerted me to this series by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: The Working Poor. It's some very good reporting and a great concentration of information on the issue.

Smoking Bans

In Barrooms, Smoking Ban Is Less Reviled
By JIM RUTENBERG and LILY KOPPEL, The New York Times, February 6, 2005

Back in 2002, when the City Council was weighing Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's proposal to eliminate smoking from all indoor public places, few opponents were more fiercely outspoken than James McBratney, president of the Staten Island Restaurant and Tavern Association.

He frequently ripped Mr. Bloomberg as a billionaire dictator with a prohibitionist streak that would undo small businesses like his bar and his restaurant. Visions of customers streaming to the legally smoke-filled pubs of New Jersey kept him awake at night.

Asked last week what he thought of the now two-year-old ban, Mr. McBratney sounded changed. "I have to admit," he said sheepishly, "I've seen no falloff in business in either establishment." He went on to describe what he once considered unimaginable: Customers actually seem to like it, and so does he.
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(Cross-posted to public_health)