In papers filed in Supreme Court in Manhattan, Harry Lysons says "he'll be on the hook for $2,000 to his next-door neighbors at 501 East 79th Street any time he smokes a cigar inside his apartment, according to an article by Dareh Gregorian in today's edition of The New York Post.

The article said that "if he doesn't pay up within 15 days," he will owe "an additional $1,500 per stogie violation.

"Despite the hefty smoking surcharge, Lysons might be getting off slightly cheap - the deal brings an end to a $2 million lawsuit the Poses couple filed against him last month, complaining that Lysons was stinking up their East 79th Street apartment with 'foul and noxious odors,'" the article said.

Under the terms of the court-approved deal, the article said that "Lysons' apartment will have to pass a smell test if the Poses say there's the scent of smoke in their two-bedroom condo," adding that "each party hereto shall afford the other party access to their apartment, upon reasonable notice for the purpose of verifying that the plaintiffs' apartment smells from cigar smoke which emanated from defendants' smoking cigars in the prohibited areas."

Mr. Lysons' lawyer, Jeffrey Marcus, said "They could have put in a million-dollar fine and it would have been fine with us, because my client won't be smoking any cigars in the apartment."

The Poses' lawyer, John Churneftsky, said his understanding was that Lysons has no intentions of quitting - he'll just smoke somewhere else. "He's still going to continue to enjoy his cigars and brandy, just not in the apartment," Churneftsky said.

The suit said the smoke was making the Poses' 6- and 3-year-old kids sick and giving them breathing problems and ear infections. "It's pungent enough that you can't eat dinner," Russell Poses, a Wall Street equities trader, said at the time.

A January 16, 2011 article by Kathianne Boniello in The New York Post said that Mr. Lysons uses three air cleaners in his third-floor co-op and even hired a specialist to try to seal off his apartment from that of Russell and Amanda Poses.

Lysons, whose wife, Ann, suffered a stroke a few months ago, said he understands how upsetting secondhand smoke can be.

"He says his son has asthma," Lysons said of Russell Poses. "The amount of secondhand smoke that child has been exposed to from my cigars is minimal. The exhaust from the city buses is worse."

The Poses family, who live in apartment 3A, claim the odors and smoke coming from 3G are so strong, they've been practically evicted from their two-bedroom co-op, the article said, adding that the family is accusing Lysons of "maliciously" and "spitefully" trying to smoke them out."

In a separate smoking development, Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed into law Monday a bill that bans smoking in outdoor public spaces like parks and beaches, "continuing the agressive pursuit of public health that has been a hallmark of his administration," according to an article Monday at observer.com by Jeremy White.

The mayor said that protecting New Yorkers from secondhand smoke was the ban's principal goal, followed by eliminating the cigarette butts that dot many beaches and parks, the article continued, adding that Bloomberg said that "cigarette litter is difficult and expensive to clean up and is a hazard to children, pets, and the environment" and "cigarette-related litter accounts for 75 percent of all litter on beaches and 33 percent of all litter in parks."