November 30, 1994

After a vigorous campaign by the tobacco industry and local restaurants, New York City Council leaders yesterday offered a revised anti-smoking bill that would loosen some proposed restrictions on smoking in restaurants and offices. But it would still be much tougher than the current law, banning smoking in virtually all public places, including outdoor sports stadiums, zoos and bingo parlors.

One of the nation's two major consumer confidence indexes, which are intended to measure the optimism of Americans about their own financial situations, shot up in November to the highest level in more than four years. The sudden surge in the index compiled by the Conference Board, to 101.3 from 89.1, might be an aberration. But many pollsters and economists agreed on one point: Even without November's jump, the index shows that Americans feel better today about their circumstances than they did in 1993. And they are not bracing for a recession -- although they might be expecting a slowdown next year.

The stage was dark at the Astor Place Theater in the East Village, except for a screen flashing slides of a glittery disco scene from the early 1980's. A black-and-white poster, made from a photograph, of a smiling man raising a glass hung from wires, looking suspended in air. The images transported the audience to a time in the life of New York City's gay populace that one mourner described as "filled with magic," a time when the man in the picture, Bruce Mailman, was still strong and healthy, before AIDS began stealing lives away by the thousands.

American investors may be growing more nervous about their stock market investments, but they keep putting money into equity mutual funds. Even last week's sharp fall in stock prices produced only a relatively small amount of withdrawals, fund managers said yesterday. That reluctance to get out no doubt helped to stabilize stocks, which recovered part of their losses after the Thanksgiving holiday. At least since 1988, individual investors have shown a willingness to buy on dips, and that behavior continues.

In power breakfasts, networking lunches and phone conversations yesterday, entertainment executives chewed on the meaning of the television studio alliance that Capital Cities/ABC Inc. announced Monday with the team of Jeffrey Katzenberg, David Geffen and Steven Spielberg. And while the ruminations ranged widely on the implications for other Hollywood creative types, many agreed that the impact would fall most directly on the big movie studios -- like Warner Brothers,, Paramount, Universal, Columbia and Disney -- that depend heavily on television production for profits.