Top New York chefs want to ban 'tacky and intrusive' e-cigarettes from their restaurants

By MARGOT PEPPERS
As electronic cigarettes become more and more widely used, restaurant owners and chefs are having to take a definitive stance on the use of them in their own establishments.
While some fine dining eateries allow the glowing cylinders, others have banned them for various reasons, like the notion that they bother other patrons, their likeness to actual cigarettes, and even simply because they appear tacky.
Eric Ripert, for instance, chef and co-owner of Le Bernadin in Times Square, told Business Week that he personally disapproves of the electronic cigarettes because ‘I don’t find it elegant. It’s weird to see someone smoking with a plastic cigarette.’
While Mr Ripert dislikes the way e-cigarettes look, he does admit that he recently allowed a patron to smoke one at the table, mostly because it is still a new phenomenon, and therefore a rare occurrence.
Do or Dine chef and owner Justin Warner has a similar take on the battery-powered cigarettes.
He explained that while he lets his diners light up electronically at the table, he, too, has an issue with how the cigarettes look – especially the blue lights on the ends, which are ‘very tacky-looking’.
‘They look like a prop I would’ve had in my raver days,’ the chef added.
Labelled as a ‘healthy’ alternative to smoking and promoted by celebrities like Jennie McCarthy and  Stephen Dorff, electronic cigarettes have seen a tenfold rise in sales in the last year alone.
But just because they are more common now than ever doesn’t necessarily mean they will become a fixture in restaurants any time soon.
Carlo Mirarchi, who owns Williamsburg restaurant Blanca, says despite what the e-cigarette companies claim, they do have a ‘kind of odor’ to them.
As such, he says he wouldn’t allow them during meal time, but he wouldn’t be averse to customers lighting up at the very end of the night.
Gabriel Stulman, the owner of restaurants including Fedora and Jeffrey’s Grocery, has a stronger opinion and stipulates that no customer smoke cigarettes – electronic or not – indoors or outdoors.
According to the Virginia native, the practice is just as intrusive and distracting as someone playing music out loud from their iPhone.
‘Anyone smoking an e-cigarette is forcing their desires and interests on others in a manner with which the other party may not enjoy it,’ he says.
Sue Chan, a spokesman for Momofuku, explained that staff at their restaurants ask that guests don’t smoke electronic cigarettes because they are ‘disruptive’ to the other diners.
For Alex Stupak, however, who owns Mexican restaurants Empellon Cocina and Empellon Taqueria, the newness of e-cigarettes means his establishments have yet to come up with an official policy.
He added that because of their supposed odorlessness, it may prove difficult to ask patrons not to smoke them, which he says would be akin to asking them to get rid of a toothpick.
And Drew Nieporent, owner of the Myriad Restaurant Group, with establishments that include Nobu and Tribeca Grill, said that when it comes to e-cigarettes in his restaurants, it depends on the situation.
While he admits that his gut reaction would be to see it as just another form of smoking, he adds that he would only say anything if another guest were to complain.
Indeed, a large number of restaurateurs are of the belief that e-cigarette smoking is acceptable so long as it is not a bother to fellow customers.
Said the management at the Elm in Williamsburg: ‘We don’t mind them. We actually have had a few guests “light up” in the dining room.’
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