| Grand Central Cancer |
10 March 2003
|
Federal System Creates Smokers' Oasis
New York City is not as tough a place as it wishes the outside world to believe. Take for example Mayor Bloomberg's efforts to make every workplace smoke-free, which includes bar and restaurants. True New Yorkers would fight this infringement on their right to be obnoxious, but they have not even managed a single riot. Perhaps it is because state law does not require one to "butt out" and so, Grand Central Station will become a smokers' oasis.
Most American train stations are frightening, run down places, but Grand Central Terminal (to use its correct name) rivals London's Victoria Station, or the Gare Austerlitz in Paris for charm mixed with usefulness. For those European readers who find those places appalling, one advises that they travel in the US by car or airplane.
And because of the federal system in the US, that glamour will continue to include tobacco smoke at least for now. When New York decides on a new governor, expect this rather ridiculous issue to rise to the top of hot-button concerns.
Although it sounds laughable that smoking in a train station may determine who the next governor is, or mayor for that matter, it is precisely this sort of politics that prevents the systemic attack on systemic problems most polities require. The old saw "smoke and mirrors" must refer to cigarettes.