Welcome to New York City - -it's been like this for a while now.
It's nice having smoke free restaurants. Even having a smoking section, left the restuarant pretty stinky. I like having a smoke free workplace, however, when the smokers troop out of the building every few hours for a 15 minute smoke break, I don't get equivelent time off, so it's not fair because they smoke they get extra time.
Bars - eh- I'm a reformed smoker, smoke in bars never bothered me... My clients office building in Chicago, has a designated smoking area outside the building -- you have to walk around to the back of the building - because people complained about having to walk thru the cloud of smoke to get in the front doors.
Giants Stadium and Yankee Stadium -- kinda silly to ban smoking there -- they are open air stadiums... the car exhaust is probalby more toxic than the cigarettes.
That said -- I really don't think it's the government's business to tell an owner of a business whether they allow smoking or not. If I am a bar owner, and I want to get business from smokers - I should be allowed to. If non-smokers don't like it-- don't come in... The owners should be able to decide what goes on in their establishments.
NOW__ I wish with every fiber of my being - they'd allow smoking on airplanes again... The air was so much cleaner on planes when that was allowed.. Now - -it's recycled air - -and I always end up with some form of sniffles.