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Hipster Inspectors Enlisted to Bust Smokers at Manhattan Nightclubs

By DNAinfo Staff on March 15, 2010 1:50pm  | Updated on March 15, 2010 1:06pm

M2 UltraLounge on West 28th Street.
M2 UltraLounge on West 28th Street.
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Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

By Nicole Breskin

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

MANHATTAN — The city has enlisted a team of young, hip-looking health inspectors to catch smokers illegally lighting up in popular Manhattan nightspots as part of a crackdown on clubs that flout the anti-smoking law.

Officials from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene told the New York Times that most venues comply with the 2002 law prohibiting smoking in bars and nightclubs, but that city inspectors have struggled to enforce the ban because it has been difficult to catch patrons in the act.

“Some of the clubs where smoking is going on tend to be very, very cool clubs, and a bunch of guys showing up in [inspectors’] jackets tend to be very, very uncool,” Thomas Merrill, general counsel for the Health Department, told the Times.

Since then, the city has found several instances of smokers puffing freely without being told to stub out their cigs.

Meanwhile, the party could already be over for one of Manhattan’s hottest clubs, as the Bloomberg administration inches closer to realizing its plan to shut down such venues that allegedly promote smoking.

The city brought Chelsea club M2 UltraLounge to a special administrative court used to take away property last week, the Times reported. If the city wins the case, it will mark the first time a club has been forced to close for violating the smoking ban.

The city has now called upon the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings to revoke food and beverage licenses of 16 bars and clubs.

Five of the venues have reached settlements with the city.

Two of the clubs shuttered for other reasons, and most of the rest — including Lit Lounge, The Box, Tenjune and Southside, all in Manhattan — may settle over the possibility of a trial date, the Times reported.

The M2 case has progressed the quickest, and the case could be closed as soon as Thursday.

Evidence against the club includes photos of patrons dancing with lit cigarettes and testimonies from inspectors that bouncers let them smoke inside.

But M2’s lawyer, Robert Bookman, defended the bouncers, saying they had thrown out patrons who were smoking, according to the Times. He also said that certain employees were fired when they didn't comply with smoking policies.

“The law is being misconstrued by the Health Department purposely to make it sound like it’s an automatic violation for a club having a patron smoking on their premises,” Bookman told the Times.

“All the law says is that we have to make a good-faith effort to inform patrons that they were breaking the law, and not with a nod and a wink.”