> I'd buy a few Vanity Fairs if they shuttled Hitch across the US in a
> campaign against these damn smoking bans.
That might be interesting. But so far all he seems to have proven, contrary to his thesis, is how easy it is to break these laws in New York without consequences. Finding a half dozen misuses of the nuisance law over a six month period in a city with 40,000 cops and 15 million midday inhabitants is as hard as finding litter. Pretending it makes a case for anything is weak minded bad faith.
The only one of these laws Bloomberg is responsible for is the one you highlight, the one against smoking in bars. (Bloomberg isn't responsible for the law against smoking in restaurants, btw -- we got that, like the law against sitting on two subways seats and the revived campaign against loitering, from the real czar of nuisance laws, Il Rudy.) Now, I have a lot of sympathy for people who are outraged by that law. But breaking it and bitching abusively doesn't make you a campaigner. It makes you just one more New York smoker in the wintertime. When Hitchens gets himself arrested and goes to trial and makes himself a cause celebre, then I'll pay attention. This is just an easy gimmick for filling a column. And not an original or timely one.
Michael