In New York? Don’t bother, there’s plenty of it, we don’t need your help.

When you get a Mussolini wannabe trying to clean up New York city, the hippest, cooler-than-thou, multicultural terrain in the entire US of A, it’s time to think that we, as a society, are heading the wrong path. A sad path.

I can understand Californians trading their free-spirited acid habits for snow shoes. But that New York, NY, the city that never slept, the one and only true intellectual refuge in this beautiful country, should lose its luster, is a true shame. Enough to make the real New Yorkers – and I’m not talking about Mr. & Mrs. Sutton Place here – want to leave this town in search of real character somewhere at least half a hemisphere away.

The freest city of the quintessentially free country (if you buy that) is turning into a place where you need a bureaucrat’s permission to light up a cigarette, have a drink, or even sex. Prohibition is around the corner on all fronts; pretty soon you’ll need an ID to buy condoms. And you’ll need to be 21 to use them.

For those of you who may have not crossed northwest of Ludlow and Houston, allow me to give you an example. Not long ago, I was attending a most interesting avant-garde concert at Irving Plaza; this was no Carnegie Hall event, OK? To my surprise, Irving Plaza had adopted a no-smoking policy. A few of us kept our lungs clean until intermission, at which point we took our drinks to the lobby to enjoy a decent smoke. In his most Shakespearean New Jersey English, the bouncer says "Yo, no smoking here; you gotta put ‘em out or go outside." We stared at each other and at the several ashtrays on the lobby with a certain air of confusion, but diligently proceeded to the exit, at which point, the bouncer added "Yo, you can’t take your drinks outside, gotta drink ‘em in here." So much for freedom.

Never mind the fact that a man had recently timbered next to the stage erasing any thoughts that LSD was a thing of the past, or that an underage kid had fallen on his own vomit. Those were certainly pretty sites to look at, but God forbid someone have the audacity of throwing second-hand smoke in a night club or have a drink at the door. Isn’t that what clubs are all about? Who needs to be healthy at a club? That’s what health clubs are for. Or are they there so that the socially inept can look at the physically challenged as they desperately try to burn off fat at a higher rate than they digest the sprinkles on their frozen yogurts?