Silk road to Michael Bloomberg Gardens
Thursday, May 2, 2024 at 9:05 Great to see Audrey Silk featured in the New York Post yesterday.
Audrey is a retired New York City police officer who, dismayed by the city’s crackdown on smoking, and smokers, founded the smokers’ rights group NYC Clash (Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment) in 2000.
For many years thereafter she protested against smoking bans, testified at government hearings, challenged the authorities in court, and appeared in the media.
Today, however, her campaigning days seem to be behind her. “I am no longer actively fighting it,” she told the NY Post, “Like I said, I can’t reason with the irrational.”
Instead her rebellious streak is focussed on growing and smoking her own tobacco, denying the authorities the exorbitant taxes she would otherwise have to pay. (It’s legal as long as she doesn’t sell it.)
Amusingly, in a nod to the former NYC mayor and billionaire who funds numerous anti-smoking initiatives:
She now calls her backyard ‘Screw You, Michael Bloomberg Gardens’. It’s where she grows her tobacco in 100 five-gallon buckets filled with soil.
What the Post doesn’t mention is that on December 30, 2013, two days before Bloomberg left office, Audrey addressed him directly at an indoor public event.
She then lit a cigarette and declared, “Good people disobey bad laws”, before a security guard rushed to intervene, almost throwing himself at her. (You can watch it here.)
Eight years before that, in July 2005, I attempted to meet Audrey during a trip to New York, but fate - in the shape of a clueless taxi driver - had other ideas.
Audrey had invited me to lunch at her home in Brooklyn and I was looking forward to seeing her and the crop of tobacco that she was growing even then.
Unfortunately, as I wrote here:
I gave the driver Audrey's address but overestimated his ability. Thirty minutes after we crossed the Brooklyn Bridge it dawned on me he had no idea where we were, or where we were going, and I had no idea either.
He was from Armenia, I think. He spoke very little English. He rang someone – his brother, perhaps – to help with directions. Meanwhile he kept on driving, looking for landmarks.
In desperation I tried calling Audrey (this was pre-smart phones) but my battered old Nokia wouldn't connect to her number. Eventually, with the meter ticking and any hope of finding her house long gone, I instructed my hapless driver to return to Manhattan.
We eventually met twelve years later, in 2017, when I invited her to speak at a session I was asked to organise at the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum (GTNF) in New York.
Forthright as ever, she described public health campaigners as “lunatics" which is the sort of plain speaking you rarely hear these days, more’s the pity.
Some delegates were a bit shocked, I think. Then again, this was the conference that began with the announcement of the launch of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World.
If Audrey has stepped back from active campaigning she will be greatly missed but she will be remembered as a tireless and hugely courageous advocate of smokers’ rights.
One day, perhaps (with the assistance of a half competent taxi driver) I may even get to sit in her backyard where I shall raise a glass to the 20+ years she dedicated to the cause.
Reader Comments (2)
I worked with Audrey in NYC, We got over 5000 signatures against Bloomberg’s proposed smoking ban in bars and got it to the city council that didn’t read it or didn’t care. The government does what tbe government wants to do. Alas.
In response to Mr. Walt's comment, I would say that the government may do what it wants to do but the government is not doing like it should, and that is the difference, because there is sometimes or more often a difference between what we want to do and what we should do, and that applies to everyone including the government. Governments restricting smoking with counter-smoking legislation are defying the reason why there is a constitution in place to be obeyed by politicians, and politicians who disobey their country's constitution deserve to have it enforced on them by the authorities that overlook its compliance. In that way, not everyone in the government can do whatever they like as they have done, and not any MP can make other people's decisions by voting on them.