(Picture by Ray Johnson)
Last week, I noticed three young men clustered around a metal ashtray bolted to the outside of a building. They didn’t mind an impromptu interview and willingly posed for the picture. It wasn’t as cold that particular day as it has been these past few, but even bitterly cold weather doesn’t stop the truly addicted from stepping outside to get their smoke on.
Just as I was saying how nice it was for them to smoke outside where they can neatly discard the butts in the tray, all of our eyes got fixated on a number of discarded butts on the ground. They all protested, “Oh, no, that’s not mine.”
It has always fascinated me that smokers can be so attached to the cigarette that they literally risk life and limb to get that smoldering fix. Speaking of being attached – smokers who don’t mind standing outside in the winter cold may also be putting themselves at greater risk of frostbite and having some of their parts (heaven forbid) – detached.
Read more about our neighborhood puffers after the jump.
The guys didn’t really tell me too much about themselves or what they were doing, other than bonding-by-puffing, at Grand Prix Motors at 1408 Avenue X – but it seems that they also share a love of cars. According to the website, Grand Prix Motors does leasing, financing, and trade-ins for all kinds of cars, not just race cars like the ones pictured on the darkened store window (hmm, wonder where in Sheepshead Bay, one might find a hot rod like that one tooling around the streets).
Being banished to the freezing cold outdoors to sneak a cigarette is something that these guys share with none other than our President-Elect Barack Obama. According to a Yahoo article, Obama told Tom Brokaw in an interview on Sunday’s Meet The Press, that the White House is a no-smoking zone. I can only assume that when he needs a nicotine fix, that he’ll be forced to huddle outside the Oval Office.
The guys I spoke to weren’t at all concerned by the health scares associated with smoking. One of them, who was smoking a cigar proudly, asked me, “Have you ever heard of George Burns?” and he proceeded to tell me the anecdotal data about the cigar-smoking icon’s long life.
There must be a lot of cigar smokers in Sheepshead Bay that Brooklyn Cigar has been able to maintain a hub (and it very own website) on Avenue Z, between East 17 and East 18 Streets. With the way that doutnik smokers like to mention the NYC-born-and-bred George Burns as their cigar-smoking “god”, it’s a wonder that Brooklyn Cigars doesn’t have his picture on their website like they do on Cigar Aficionado.
These guys might be better off saying “nyet” to the game of Russian roulette (puns intended) they seem to be playing with their health. It might be that they are part of the 30 percent of by-choice smokers who say they don’t want to quit. Or, then again, it might be that they are part of the 70 percent who do want to quit, but something is holding them back. In an AOL article entitled, Why You’re Really Not Quitting, Kathryn Steinberg writes,
Seventy percent of current smokers want to quit, according to Dawn E. Wiatrek, Ph.D., Quitline Director, National Cancer Information Center, American Cancer Society. So why aren’t more people stomping out their cigarette stubs? There are a variety of psychological reasons you’re really not quitting, in addition to the very real physical addiction of tobacco.
She goes on to outline the major health problems associated with smoking and some of the psychological barriers holding addicts back from smoking. In answer to my question about how many years they had been smoking, one of the guys seemed startled by his own statement that he was thirteen years old when when he first started smoking. After clearing the smoke from his brain and thinking deeply for a minute, he said, “Seventeen, yeah, I was seventeen”.
All of the guys said that they had health insurance. That’s a good thing, because should they decide to go from “I love standing out here in the freezing cold with my smoking-induced asthma that I can no longer ignore” to “I’m so glad I finally got rid of that dirty habit, once-and-for-all”, their insurance might cover various types of smoking cessation plans. One of the unique and interesting choices out there is medical hypnosis and according to the American Psychotherapy and Medical Hypnosis Association, this therapy is also available to the Medicaid-insured.
Since these guys like smoking so much and they like cars so much, there is the possibility that they might be combining the two pleasures by driving while smoking. While studies show that a comparatively small percentage of car accidents are caused by drivers distracted by smoking, this has not stopped controversial legislation all over the nation and the world to be introduced attempting to ban this activity. It’s just a matter of time that something similar becomes a controversy in New York.
According to this article at FOX news, studies show that in cities where smoking while driving is banned, there is an increase in driving while drinking. To avoid the cigarette while behind the steering wheel, it seems that many may be coping by taking to the bottle, instead.
So, my Grand Prix-smoking-club friends, let’s hope you can beat this thing and get out of the cold, soon.
Related posts
Print This
- View Comments
- Opinion
My sister used to work for these guys, It might have been last summer. In any case, I’m not 100% sure on the details but as I understand it she had to leave because she was going to start a new semester at school. I don’t know if she left because she didn’t want to split her time or because her boss couldn’t accommodate her hours but I do know he expected her to stay on an extra month to train her replacement FOR FREE!
Bad form!
wheres ned
Right here. And by here, I mean nowhere near Sheepshead Bay. I’m traveling right now and only checking in on the site occasionally.
local broker and others: Ray has been doing a tremendous job with the site, and has added a lot of flavor and narrative-style that I think is great. Her work has been tremendous. And it must be remembered that she has been doing all of this on a volunteer basis – no pay, but a lot of aggravation.
You may not realize, but it is VERY difficult and time consuming to collect the information on buildings and real estate deals, and also to attend all the community meetings. Ray does her best, but if you believe there’s information we’re missing of failing to cover, then by ALL means, SEND IT OVER. Write for us, even if it’s just a few lines about an issue or some news. We welcome it, and so do your neighbors.
This is your site — help contribute to the conversation in a constructive way.
i was just busting chops would have said balls but just founf out that Ray is a women
anyway you know i have given you tips about alot of things going on in the area
actually i was going to say something before the first guy did but didnt then i read that others were thinking the same thing so i thought i would throw my two cents in as well im just saying that reading about smokers in the bay is not interesting i think we all know people smoke here and everywhere else and most know by now that its not a good thing for you either way if you are going to do this find some good stuff not a couple dudes smoking outside why dont you do an article about prostitution in the hotels or something lol
So many stories, so little time.
Anyway, I’m a little bored with talking about smoking…so, let’s see what new angle (that the Brooklyn View, Gerritsen Beach.net, Brownstoner, The New York Times, and everyone else hasn’t done, yet) I can come up with about what’s going on Avenue S. Guess it’ll be another sleepless night. Wish I had a cigarette to calm my nerves – seems I got some pretty demanding readers. (Just kidding.)
This has been an issue that has affected many in SB. The photo was of smokers in SB. Health is an issue that affects people in SB.
There are bad developers, crimes, and new stores opening up all over the world and right here in SB, just like there are people affected by smoking all over the world and right here in SB – if we were to cover only those three subjects, someone else might say we’re getting boring or doing stories just like everywhere else.
This particular post about smoking has really hit a nerve and I wonder if these things have anything to do with it:
Just thinking about quitting is enough to make most smokers edgy.
(A quote from About.com’s Quit Smoking page. Link: http://tinyurl.com/y8vj9k)
and
…research from New York’s Columbia University suggests smoking may impact their mental health as well, by increasing the risk of certain anxiety disorders.
(A quote from WebMD’s Smoking Cessation Center. Link: http://tinyurl.com/9kvd8f)
yeah but your not talking much about whats going on in the bay. gbnet has a story that should be on this site about the dev site on ave s even though i heard about before he had it its something you should have
we know alot of people smoke in the bay im one of them but who cares
find out about some bad developer or crime or new store like starbucks opening on nostrand and neck road
i am a fan of the blog, but clearly you are running out of material. risk of smoking in the cold is frost bite and then you go on about listing downsides of smoking? yes smoking is bad for u, i think we all know that.
Hey, I thought Casper was a friendly ghost!
Thanks for your reading and being a fan (I think.)
Just happened upon this latest information about cancer rates: