Inside the Olympic Bid

The Times’ Jim Rutenberg takes a look behind the scenes at the city’s failed bid to lure the 2012 Olympics while Clyde Haberman gets a cheap and easy column from Singapore’s draconian laws:

All right, New York couldn’t snag the 2012 Olympics, but the venture does not have to be a total loss. There is a lot that the city can learn from this experience.

For one thing, in his pursuit of the Games, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg spent days in Singapore, where London’s triumph over New York and other rivals was announced yesterday.

Mr. Bloomberg is a proven quick study. He has also shown himself to be willing, even eager at times, to crack down on activities that offend him, like illegal parking and smoking in bars or restaurants. In this regard, Singapore had much to offer as a model, if the mayor paid attention.

Restrict smoking? That’s a snap. Many cities do that. But Singapore blazed a special trail long ago under its autocratic leader, Lee Kuan Yew, by famously banning chewing gum.

That prohibition has often been mocked as an example of a nanny state on steroids. Even Singapore finally decided to lighten up a little, softening the rules last year to permit the sale of certain kinds of gum, though only in pharmacies and only if those brands have “medicinal” or “dental” value.

Go ahead and laugh. But if the mayor seeks a distraction from his Olympics defeat by looking for something new to ban, he could do worse than to follow Singaporean tradition by hounding gum chewers as he did smokers.

Those countless black blotches on New York sidewalks? They’re awful, and they do not get there by themselves. Thousands of pedestrians spit out their gum. Then thousands of feet grind the ugly mess into the pavement. Singapore shows that there is another way to go.