We Will Not Tolerate Tolerance!

New York City is cracking down on "smoke-easies," bars and clubs that let their customers light up despite a municipal edict that forbids such accommodation. The latest target, according to The New York Times, is "one of the largest and busiest nightclubs in the city": the M2 Ultralounge on West 28th Street in Manhattan. "If the case against the club succeeds," the Times reports, "it would be the first time the city had closed a business solely for flouting a ban on smoking." Because many of the targeted night spots are defended by nearly impregnable barriers of coolness, the health department "has deputized a team of inspectors—many of them younger and hipper-looking than the stereotypical bureaucrat—to work into the wee hours, posing as patrons and hunting for tolerance of smoking by clubs' employees."