Smoke-filled Rooms / Brooklyn Tobacco Party

by Herb Allen
Source: The New Yorker (2002-07-22)
URL: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?020729ta_talk_allen

Issue of 2002-07-29 Posted 2002-07-22

CLASH, which stands for Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment, is the only organization dedicated exclusively to protecting the rights of New York City smokers. It was founded two years ago by Audrey Silk, a thirty-eight-year-old police officer in Brooklyn's Sixty-seventh Precinct, who smokes between one and two packs a day and was, she says, "sick and tired of the government telling me how to live my life." Under Silk's leadership, CLASH has opposed the ban on smoking in restaurants, fought proposals to raise the tax on cigarettes, and worked to discredit scientific studies that link secondhand smoke to lung disease. After September 11th, CLASH called for tobacco companies to donate cigarettes to the rescue workers at Ground Zero.

The other day, CLASH held a meeting at the Ashford Arms pub, in Marine Park, Brooklyn. In addition to Silk, three people showed up: sixty-five-year-old Deb Sugar, of Sheepshead Bay; Deb's husband, Irv, age seventy-three; and Irv's sister Marlene Block, age sixty-eight. The group sat at a table in the back, and everybody lit a cigarette, except Irv, who has emphysema and quit smoking thirty years ago. Silk handed out flyers and petition forms.

DEB SUGAR: Smoking offers me a certain sense of peace. It relaxes me. I don't see why I'm being discriminated against.

AUDREY SILK: That's why we need to make sure smokers have information on how to boycott the tax.

MARLENE BLOCK: I think most people who are addicted already know how to avoid it.

AUDREY: Hold on. Be very careful when you use that word. Anti-smoking forces have redefined addiction to mean something evil. Lots of things are addictive. Bloomberg is addicted to money.

MARLENE: I'm addicted to coffee.

IRV SUGAR: I'm addicted to eggs.

MARLENE: Why is it that I'm on Wellbutrin to quit smoking, and I smoke more than ever?

AUDREY: Addiction is all in your head. You have to want to quit.

MARLENE: Yeah, I don't want to.

A few minutes into the meeting, hot wings and chicken fingers arrived. Between bites, conversation turned to Mayor Bloomberg.

AUDREY: Technically, he's my boss, since I'm a cop, but I don't like him. And that voice! It's like nails in my head.

IRV: He sounds a little gay.

AUDREY: He's got too many women to be gay.

DEB: That's what we have to do, go out and get the gay people involved. They smoke a lot.

AUDREY: No, no, the biggest anti-smoking guy in the city is gay. Joseph Cherner.

DEB: Do you know who we ought to contact? Bill Maher. He's got nothing to do since his show was cancelled, and he says he's against the tax.

AUDREY: He's not a libertarian.

DEB: And he hates women.

IRV: I'll drink to that.

A thick cloud of smoke had formed over the CLASH meeting, and Irv started coughing. He stood up and began pacing around the room's perimeter, where the air was cleaner.

IRV: Another thing: if I want to kiss a smoker, it's a terrible taste.

AUDREY: Then don't kiss that smoker. I won't date a non-smoker.

DEB: Irv, you haven't kissed me in ten years.

IRV: That's because you smoke. There comes a time when things get intolerable. I'm not twenty anymore.

AUDREY: This is not helping! This meeting is supposed to be about smokers' rights.

MARLENE: I thought they added chemicals to cigarettes, like ammonia and nicotine.

AUDREY: That's propaganda. They're only putting things back in that were lost in the processing. Have you seen those commercials that say cigarettes contain arsenic? There's arsenic in drinking water, for God's sake. There's nicotine in your tomatoes. Hello?

MARLENE: Tomatoes?

AUDREY: Yeah. Potatoes, too.

As the meeting came to a close, Irv had a suggestion. "If all you people walked into a nice restaurant, lit up, caused a riot, and made the cops come down and arrest you, then people would listen."

Silk sighed, touching a diamondstudded N.Y.P.D. pendant on her neck. "I can't be involved in that right now. I can't flout the law. But I retire from the force in a year and eight months. Then people better watch out. All hell will break loose."

 

If you would like to send an ez-letter about a smokefree issue, go to http://www.smokefree.org

 

Joseph W. Cherner, President
SmokeFree Educational Services, Inc.
http://www.smokefree.org

 

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world.  Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."       Margaret Mead