Wintertime Sight: Smokers Shiver in NYC

They huddle and shiver around the city's office buildings -- under ledges, by doorways and near service entrances in the freezing cold three or four times every day.

In an era of smoke-free offices, wintertime is no fun for many smokers in New York City -- and throughout much of the country.

“I don’t like it,” said Mia Dennis, an Internet-based business reporter standing in front of 156 West 56th Street Thursday in in a long, fuzzy black coat, holding a cup of steaming coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Slush and snow lined the street.

“It’s a waste of time,” she said. “If they let us smoke inside we could be much more efficient. It’s annoying.”

Restrictions Across America

Over the past decade, smoking has been banned or restricted in offices, restaurants, bars and other public places around America. In the past, office employees often smoked in specially designated indoor areas or even at their desks. But a large number of them are now being forced outdoors, making the sight of smokers congregating in front of office buildings a common one in New York and elsewhere.

Martin Barretta, 51, a phone system installer for Avaya, said he understands the needs of non-smokers, but would like a bit more consideration himself.

“I’d like a heat lamp and a place to sit down,” he said during a smoke break in 30-degree cold, outside the Paramount Plaza office building on Broadway between West 50th and West 51st streets. “I have sympathy for the people who don’t smoke, apparently more sympathy than they have for me.”

Smokers Smoldering

Eric Schippers, executive director of the Virginia-based National Smokers Alliance, says such feelings are common, and sometimes blaze more angrily.

“The folks we talk to are very upset,” Schippers says. For employees who smoke, “having to think about smoking outside and having their lunch outside is unnecessary. It’s punitive.”

“You can find ways to accommodate your employees without forcing them out in the cold,” he says. “This prohibitionist agenda of some of these anti-smoking groups goes much farther than is necessary.”

Right to Smoke-Free Environment

But to Julia Valdez, a program manager for the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation in Berkeley, Calif., it is better to put individual smokers out in the cold for a few minutes at a time than to place an office at risk of contamination by secondhand smoke, a carcinogen. She even feels New York City’s rules, which allow limited office smoking in specially ventilated rooms or enclosed executive offices, could be stronger.

“If we allow workplaces to have smoke, everybody’s exposed all the time because the smoke doesn’t go away,” she says. “If one [person in an enclosed office] is the boss and two are the employees and the boss says we’re going to smoke in this room, who’s going to really have the power there?

“I think that the best thing is … to get people to not smoke,” Valdez says.

‘Dedicated to Smoking’

Some employees standing outside in slushy, sub-freezing New York City say their insurance won’t pay for smoking cessation treatments. And even if it did, New Yorkers don’t like to be told what to do.

“I quit when I want, not when somebody else tells me to,” said Teresa McCarthy, 53, a payroll administrator for Freedom Technology Media Group, standing outside the same building as Dennis with only an unbuttoned sweater over her office clothes to protect her from the cold.

Not even temperatures earlier this week in the low 20s could dissuade her and her hearty band.

“We came out,” she joked. “We’re dedicated to smoking.”

Fellowship Among Smokers

Indeed, smokers say that often the camaraderie among smokers can diminish worries about the cold.

“It’s a good break, and if you’re not a smoker you don’t get the breaks,” says Radik Kizhnerman, 24, an Internet sales coordinator for Destination CRM, a Web site in the same building. “It’s like standing around the water cooler.”

Theresa Landry, 31, an administrative assistant at Alliance Capital, said she felt much the same way, as she shivered and smoked outside her office on Sixth Avenue.

“The office is divided into the smokers and the non-smokers, and the smokers are much more fun,” she said.

The cold doesn’t dissuade her. But, she said, “what’s making me think of quitting is they’re supposed to raise the price of cigarettes again.”

Matt Sullivan, 22, and Marcus Marsh, 23, paralegals at Dewey Ballantine, LLP on Sixth Avenue, were weatherized in overcoats and scarves for their smoking break.

“If we had a smoking room, we’d probably be inside,” Marsh said.

“We plan our smoke breaks,” Sullivan added. “The drama’s outside.”

“There are a lot of beautiful women in the city,” Marsh said. “You can watch them walk by, although it’s better in the summer.”

Cold Chills Enthusiasm

But the cold was getting to some people, including Roman Revzia, 22, a technical support manager at the law firm Leboeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae, who stood on West 55th Street without a coat, in a gray dress shirt unbuttoned at the collar. He has a special smoking spot where heat wafts from a service entrance, but he still is having second thoughts during his first winter as a smoker.

“It’s partly the cold, but there are a lot of reasons I’d like to quit,” he said.

Michael Taylor, 35, a sales and marketing official at the Paramount Hotel on West 46th Street, says he might curtail his smoking breaks because of the weather, but only if it gets really cold — like if hell freezes over.

“It would have to be really, really cold for a long, long time,” he said, as he smoked in an overcoat. “When you see mammoths on Fifth Avenue, that might do it.”