By Scott Brinton
He had worked for close to two years to develop a bill that would ban smoking in restaurants and bars statewide, and he had lobbied his fellow lawmakers hard to enact the legislation. The landmark measure appeared ready to pass the Legislature.
Then a host of big tobacco companies stepped in and handed out hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations to state Senate and Assembly members. The Legislature shot the bill down when it came up for a vote.
Fuschillo, however, didn't give up on the legislation. Working with Assemblyman Peter Grannis (D-New York City), the senator rewrote the bill, toughening the ban proposal to include all public places.
Since January, both Fuschillo and Grannis quietly lobbied their colleagues in the state capital, meeting continually with Republicans and Democrats. One lawmaker at a time, the measure gained support. Last Wednesday, the Legislature enacted the smoking ban bill, and within hours Gov. George Pataki signed it into law.
"I never stopped campaigning for this bill in Albany," Fuschillo said, even though over the past few months he again faced stiff opposition from the tobacco industry. "They were relentless in their pursuit," he said, "but they didn't succeed."
The new law amends the New York Clean Indoor Act of 1989 and prohibits smoking in virtually all work and public places, including restaurants, bars, schools, day-care centers, health-care facilities, billiard parlors, auditoriums, zoos, theaters, retail stores and public-transportation hubs.
When the law takes effect July 24, New York will boast the toughest no-smoking policy in the nation, along with California, which banned smoking in all public places in 1998.
Second-hand smoke, Fuschillo said, represents a serious health threat to non-smokers. According to the American Heart Association, second-hand smoke is the third leading cause of preventable death in the nation, killing an estimated 53,000 people annually.
Second-hand smoke has more than 4,000 chemicals, 200 of which are poisons and 43 of which are known to cause cancer. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies second-hand smoke as a Group A carcinogen. The EPA reserves Group A for the most dangerous, cancer-causing chemicals such as arsenic, asbestos, benzene, radon and 10 other poisons.
A Pataki spokesperson said, "A statewide ban on smoking in the workplace will lead to a healthier New York and will reduce the cost of health care for New Yorkers."
The state follows Nassau and Suffolk counties and New York City in banning smoking in public places. The local smoking bans, which are to take effect on different dates, convinced Fuschillo that a total, statewide ban was needed and helped build support in the Legislature for the new state law, the senator said.
"I felt strongly we couldn't do anything less in the state" than local municipalities, he said.
Numerous groups joined in supporting the state ban, including the New York State Medical Society, the American Cancer Society, the Heart Association, the Lung Association, the College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the New York Nurses Association and the New York Restaurant Association, which represents more than 8,000 restaurateurs.
The statewide ban has local public-health groups, like the Community Wellness Council of the Bellmores and Merricks, rejoicing.
Gail Volk, the Wellness Council's executive director, said she was disappointed when the 2002 ban proposal went down. "Last year we thought [the ban] was going to happen," said Volk, who offered testimony about the positive effects of prohibiting smoking during a legislative hearing that Fuschillo conducted at Seaford High School last spring.
"Then," Volk said, "in the 11th hour, there was a barrage of big tobacco efforts to thwart Sen. Fuschillo's effort. It was just such a letdown after we thought it was going to happen."
Now, however, she said, "All of us who have been working towards [the ban] are walking on air."
The ban, Volk believes, will help reduce smoking by encouraging many to quit the habit. Studies have found that when people aren't able to smoke at work, they're more likely to stop altogether, she said. "At some point," she explained, "they say, you know what? It's way too difficult, or I was thinking of quitting anyway."
In addition to the tobacco industry, many restaurant and bar owners opposed the ban, both at the county and state levels. Thomas Valenti, who owns Piccolo Ristorante in Bellmore with his brother Robert, said he knows many restaurateurs who were up in arms over the ban, fearing the possible loss of smokers as customers.
But Valenti, who sent a representative to speak at Fuschillo's Seaford High hearing, said that forbidding smoking in restaurants doesn't necessarily bring business to a halt. He noted that Piccolo banned smoking more than six years ago, and he said his Sunrise Highway eatery continues to thrive today.
Valenti said that he and his brother decided to do away with smoking when they found more of their customers requesting non-smoking seating. Those same customers became increasingly annoyed -- and vocal -- when smoke wafted across their tables. Valenti said smoking "was an impossible situation to regulate. You can't stop the smoke from floating from one side of the restaurant to the other. We decided the future was non-smoking."
Valenti, who believes restaurant and bar owners should be allowed to choose whether to allow smoking, also noted that prohibiting it has reduced Piccolo's maintenance costs. "It makes it easier to keep [the restaurant] clean," he said. "The air filters don't have to be cleaned as often."
Despite its potential benefits, the smoking ban angers many. Emilio Manzo, a member of the Bellmore Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, spoke against Nassau County's smoking ban during one of the business group's recent meetings.
Manzo, who said he wasn't speaking on the chamber's behalf, believes banning smoking will cripple bars and bowling alleys, whose patrons, he said, are often smokers. In an interview, Manzo said, "You don't get people who go into bars and bowling alleys who don't smoke. We all know that smoking is bad for us. The bottom line is that the businesses are losing mad money."
Manzo, who is a painting contractor, also said that many Nassau restaurant owners spent tens of thousands of dollars to install separate, ventilated smoking rooms, as required by county law. The smoking ban now renders those rooms unnecessary. So, Manzo said, the restaurateurs "wasted their money."
Manzo did say that banning smoking statewide would allow Nassau restaurants, bars and bowling alleys to once again compete with Suffolk's. Nassau and Suffolk each recently enacted smoking ban laws. Nassau's ban, however, took effect immediately, while Suffolk's did not. Many smokers, Manzo said, have gone to Suffolk for a night out. The ban has particularly hurt eateries and bowling alleys along the Nassau-Suffolk border, he said.
Fuschillo, who sits on the Senate Health Committee, said his sole focus in fighting for the smoking ban was protecting public health. "For me, this has been strictly a public health issue," he said.
Exceptions to the rule
The statewide smoking ban covers most public places. There are exceptions to the law, however. They include: private homes, automobiles, hotel or motel rooms, retail tobacco businesses, established cigar bars, outdoor areas of restaurants with no roofs, separate, enclosed rooms of residential health-care and adult-home facilities, and volunteer organizations with no paid employees, such as an American Legion Hall.
