Senator twijfelt aan rookverbod New York
Bij politici in zowel de staat als de stad New York begint langzaamaan door te dringen dat het algehele rookverbod daar de nodige slachtoffers vergt in de branche.
Een Senior Senator wil nu mogelijkheden gaan bekijken om de wet die roken in de horeca verbiedt af te zwakken:
“I couldn’t believe the state passed it,” Schumer added. “The original law that New York had wasn’t bad with the requirement of separate seating.”
February 14, 2004 — Sen. Chuck Schumer wants to snuff out Mayor Bloomberg’s strict smoking ban.
For the first time publicly, New York’s senior senator has come out against the controversial anti-smoking law – deciding to speak out about what insiders say has privately been his position from the get-go.
“Chuck works well with the mayor on a host of issues, but on this one they’ll just have to disagree,” Schumer spokesman Pete Singer told The Post.
Schumer’s position that the city’s law should be softened came in response to questions from The Post after the senator recently blasted the recent statewide smoking ban.
Speaking of the separate statewide law, Schumer told an upstate newspaper that he hoped to find some ways to amend it.
The same goes for the New York City law, Schumer’s office confirmed. “His feelings about it are consistent across the board,” Singer said.
As in the city, many upstate bar and restaurant owners are complaining the law is hurting their business.
“This [state] law just came out of Albany like a bat out of hell,” Schumer told the Oneida Dispatch. “There might be some ways to amend it, I hope.
“I couldn’t believe the state passed it,” Schumer added. “The original law that New York had wasn’t bad with the requirement of separate seating.”
Schumer’s position on the city ban should score him points with New York City bar and restaurant owners pressing for repeal of the law.
“For a significant portion of our industry, the ban isn’t working,” Chuck Hunt, head of the city chapter of the New York State Restaurant Association, wrote in a recent editorial of the group’s in-house magazine.
Bron: New York Post