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Along the bar Friday at Squirrel Hill Cafe, it seemed unimaginable that the new year would begin with no smoking at New York City bars.

The Big Apple's Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has signed a bill this week that bans smoking in almost all bars and restaurants, effective March 30.

The city had banned smoking in most restaurants in 1995, but bars remained a smoker's haven. Now smoking will be outlawed at most bars. Exempt are bars in which only the owner is the employee; cigar bars; nonprofit clubs with no employees; and at some bars with enclosed smoking rooms.

The ban is justified, Bloomberg has said, because it protects bar employees who are forced to breathe second-hand smoke for lengthy periods.

"I think it's disgusting," said Coral Calloway, 48, of Homewood, a regular at Squirrel Hill Cafe, also known as the "Squirrel Cage," on Forbes Avenue. Relaxing with a Captain Morgan's on the rocks and a Doral menthol yesterday afternoon, Calloway bristled at Bloomberg's new law.

"You're robbing people of a choice," she said. "He's the smoke Nazi!"

Bartender Janice Cavrak, 51, of Swissvale, agreed with her customer. Cavrak has worked at the bar for 22 years — the past eight of them behind the bar. A smoker, Cavrak shrugged off any concern for second-hand smoke.

"I really think that bars are some of the last places that you can go and smoke," Cavrak said. "Please don't let Pittsburgh's bars go nonsmoking."

Others in Pittsburgh said they are encouraged by New York City's smoking ban. They see the ban as a part of a trend whose time has come. Seven states — including such populous ones such as California and Florida — have enacted similar smoking bans in recent years. Other large cities, including Boston and Chicago, are considering no-smoking legislation.

Pennsylvania's cities are mostly barred from enacting no-smoking legislation because of a clause in the state's Clean Indoor Air Act of 1988. A Pittsburgh group has been working for years to change the state law, and at least two other local groups are trying to pressure restaurant and bar owners to ban smoking voluntarily.

"I call it: 'The Tobacco Industry Protection Act,' " said Bill Godshall, referring to state's Clean Indoor Air Act. "We've had a real difficult time because the local governments can't do anything about it."

Godshall contends that tobacco lobbyists — working with the Pennsylvania Restaurant Association — have influenced state legislators to leave the law as is.

Spokesman Patrick Conway said the restaurant association has members who choose to have smoke-free restaurants and those who don't. He said the association wants the decision to be left to members, not government.

"We don't think the government should be telling a restaurateur what to do," Conway said.

Other anti-smoking activists are taking their message straight to the source. Fifteen leading UPMC Health System doctors have sent letters to Pittsburgh restaurants and bars in the past several months encouraging them to ban smoking, with some success, they said.

"If they know the medical community has serious concerns, that puts some weight behind it," said Dr. Marshall W. Webster, chief executive officer of the University of Pittsburgh Physicians.

SmokeFree Restaurants of Southwestern Pennsylvania compiles the Web site www.NoSmokeDining.org, which lists restaurants that ban smoking. The Web site lists about 90 restaurants in the Pittsburgh area. Organizer Greg Hartley says the site helps people who discover that most restaurants' nonsmoking sections usually are positioned next to smoking sections.

"That's like have a non-chlorinated section of a chlorinated pool," Hartley said.

At Craig Street Cafe in Oakland — one of the eateries listed on Hartley's site — nonsmoker Heidi Ludwick said attempts to ban smoking would create "a big controversy."

Ludwick, 25, of Greenfield, said she can't imagine a smoke-free bar.

"From what I've seen," she said, "smoking and drinking seem to go together."

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