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Bloomberg's Beer Bust
By
Jen Chung
Published Apr 13, 2004
Modified Mar 6, 2008
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By
Jen Chung
Published Apr 13, 2004
Modified Mar 6, 2008
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The battlelines are drawn: It's Mayor Bloomberg versus Rheingold. Rheingold is running some ads on cable TV that pokes fun at various quality-of-life hallmarks of our Mayor's term: Cabaret laws, summonses, and, of course, the smoking ban. The Daily News describes two ads:
In one ad, dancers shake their booties until a banner appears on screen warning: "No Dancing. Fine: $300."
The most controversial spot, "Ashtray," shows several people striding down the street with ashtrays in their pockets. They pop into a bar, slam down the trays and are served a Rheingold before the screen fades to the message: "No Smoking in Bars. Fines issued: $200 and up."
The Mayor is annoyed, saying, "Rheingold is a company that walked out on this city 30 years ago," to remind all that Rheingold shut down its Bushwick brewery, which not only caused 1,500 jobs to go down the drain, but also 62,000 gallons of beer (into the sewer).
Rheingold Beer's president sayd, "It's all about freedom of choice, which is one of the things that makes this city so great." Yeah. Gothamist hasn't seen the spots yet, but we can count on two hands the number of MasterCard priceless ads we've seen already. But at any rate, Mayor B, you're in a tough spot: You've been sucking the livelihood out of various dancers and smokers (though giving the smokers another few months or years to live), and now you're threatening the last legal remaining source of it...how important is the youth vote to you again?
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Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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