With murder, rape and robbery all down, New York City is the safest it's been in decades. But that doesn't mean the cops are sitting around twirling their nightsticks. Cybercrime, petty theft and the mayor's new noise regulations are all affecting the local culture.In case you haven't heard the deafening sound of politicians and police bigwigs patting themselves on the back, serious crime in New York is headed the way of the seedy Times Square and the dollar slice. An FBI report on 2005 crime rates in the nation's 25 largest cities rated New York City as the safest.Indeed, killings, rapes, robberies, felony assaults, burglaries and car thefts are all way, way down, according to NYPD arrest stats. Take murders: They totaled 540 last year. That's the lowest figure since the city started tracking the number in 1963, and a drop of 17 percent from 2001, 54 percent from 1995 and 76 percent from 1990, when there were 2,262 murders. "How low can crime go?" Mayor Bloomberg asked in his State of the City address in January. "No one knows the answer, but we intend to find out."With the most egregious offenses seemingly under control, will the NYPD now put its focus on lifestyle-related issues? And what areas do need more police attention? Those New Yorkers who aren't involved with the underworld but take part in the city's culture—presumably, most of the people reading this magazine—may wonder whether a return to Giuliani-style "quality of life" crackdowns is on the horizon, or how worried they should be about the growing menace of cybercrime. A survey of the local legal landscape provides a clearer picture.Where there's smoke...Those who urge an easing of marijuana-possession laws are not quite ready to call this the Bloombong administration. "I love it when the Allman Brothers come to town," says Ruth Liebesman, a criminal defense attorney and the legal director of the city's chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). "I'm busy with cases of people getting busted outside the Beacon." According to NORML, marijuana arrests in NYC went up slightly in 2005 to 36,179, the first uptick here in a couple of years.But that number is still down by almost half from the zero-tolerance days of the Giuliani administration—and it's clear that Mayor Mike has set, um, higher priorities than clogging the criminal justice system with concertgoers. A source close to the NYPD told TONY that the cops have been instructed to lay off the typical sidewalk joint smoker, unless there's another reason to make the bust. Liebesman says she has seen a difference. "Everyone caught with a joint under the Giuliani regime got processed through the system," she says. "A guy arrested on Friday night with a joint wasn't released until Monday sometimes, and he'd lose his job." Now, the Bloomberg administration is giving tickets instead, Liebesman notes, and if you go to court, you can seek an ACD—adjournment and contemplation of dismissal. "If you stay out of trouble for a year, the case is dismissed and you can legally say that you've never been arrested," Liebesman explains. From a business perspective, this has left her a bit in the weeds. "I haven't gotten as many calls the past couple of months as I have in the past," Liebesman says. "But then again, the Allman Brothers haven't been around."Identity crisisAccording to the most recent IBM Global Business Security Index report, the link between cyber-criminals and organized crime is growing, and "phishing" attacks (e-mailed money-bilking schemes) continue to proliferate. Additionally, in per capita terms, New York is the seventh worst state for identity theft, and New York City is the worst city in the state—by a wide margin. From 2003 to 2004, identity theft jumped by about 11 percent here. The NYPD's Computer Crime Squad, created to tackle these types of offenses, investigates network intrusions and analyzes the computers used by violent criminals and suspected terrorists, as well as those of con artists.For people who endure identity theft, the worst part is that once it happens, the mess lingers. Eighteen months ago, writer and actor Tanya Selvaratnam returned to Brooklyn from doing a show in Melbourne to find a message from a credit-card company's fraud-protection agency. Someone had applied for a card using her work address in Australia. "They had my name, date of birth, Social Security number," Selvaratnam says. The account wasn't opened, because the thief hung up during the verification process, flagging the application, as well as Selvaratnam's credit iden-tity. Now, she says, "whenever I apply for anything, a mortgage or a line of credit, I'll get a call like that. I'm not sure when this will really be done with."Taken for a ride"Bike theft is now an epidemic," claims David Snetman, bicycle campaign coordi-nator at Transportation Alternatives, a group dedicated to expand-ing biking, walking and public-transit opportunities. Police numbers don't give the full picture, Snetman says; according to studies, less than 10 percent of bike pilfering is reported. And with bicycling in the city becoming more popular, crime has risen correspondingly.Chris Green, 32, works in Internet marketing and loves his bike. This is why he's persevered, despite having each tire, his seat and his handlebars stolen at different times in the past couple of years. "The handlebars were almost stolen another time, too," Green says. "My co-workers were outside our building having a smoke and saw this guy actu-ally doing it. They said, 'Hey, that's our friend's bike.' And he was like, 'Oh yeah, I was thinking of taking these handlebars.' And they were like, 'Yeah, you probably shouldn't do that.' He just rode away. That's how brazen these guys are."Green's troubles relate to what Snetman says is the biggest problem facing bicyclists in New York City: commercial office buildings that don't allow riders to bring their bikes upstairs. Earlier this year, City Council member David Yassky introduced legislation that would require commercial buildings to provide safe harbor for bicycles. "You really can't bike to work without leaving it outside, and we all know the dangers of that," Yassky has said.Living out loudThe good news? Unless you try pretty hard, you probably won't be arrested for enjoying yourself at New York City's bars and clubs. The bad news? The owners of those same joints are dealing with all the law enforcement they can stand. "We always joked that Giuliani made the streets safe at night but didn't believe anyone should be out on them," says Rob Bookman, counsel for the New York Nightlife Association, a coalition of bar and nightclub owners. "I think Bloomberg thinks nightlife is a great part of New York City. But the police department has an institutional bias against any place with lots of young people late at night."Bookman and several club owners who spoke with TONY say their establishments are suffering because of the smoking ban, combined with their being located in neighborhoods zoned for both commercial and residential use. In general, bars enforce the ban—according to the city's Department of Health, violations have steadily gone down each year since it went into effect. But the ban also pushes nic--fixers outside, where the neighbors don't appreciate high-volume witty repartee. "When the ban went into effect, there were two violations—the business owner if they permitted smoking, and the smoker," Bookman says. "But it was never enforced that way. It's bad politics to give thousands of tickets to people."And so the onslaught of noise violations continues. "Someone comes by pretty much every night," says Ariel Palitz, the owner of Sutra Lounge in the East Village. "When you're red-flagged for one thing, you're red-flagged for every other agency—health, fire, police."Palitz chalks up her problems to less-than-understanding neighbors. "These are people who are living on Ludlow Street or the corner of First and 1st in the East Village, and their expectations aren't realistic. We put in $20,000 worth of soundproofing, but it's never going to be silent. The police could do a better job of not just going after the bars, but also trying to educate the community about realistic expec-ta-tions."Clubs and bars will soon have to deal with the city's new noise code, which calls for establishments to keep sound levels below 42 decibels, instead of the current standard of 45 decibels, when measured inside a nearby residence. And for the first time, officers will be wielding noise meters, rather than just their ears and personal judgment. The noise code takes effect in July 2007.Bye, tunesAh, 2005, when iPods became the must-have accessory—for crooks. According to published NYPD stats, there were no reported iPod thefts in 2004, but 50 had been called in by the end of last April. Similarly, the number of documented cell-phone heists jumped from 82 to 165. Those thefts alone were enough to push subway crime up for the first half of 2005, after it had been dropping steadily for years. The NYPD responded with increased patrols and an ad campaign to encourage people to hold tight to their gadgets.Of course, you don't have to be on a train for someone to nab your iPod. Kim Maxwell, 23, was walking in the Flatiron District a few days after Christmas when "a dude on a bike" swooped by and yanked her iPod from her pocket, where it was clipped; moments before, she had taken it out to adjust the volume. "He probably saw me and just thought, This is too easy," Maxwell says. "I didn't call the police. I just ran out in the street and called him a fucking asshole."As more and more high-tech, desirable gear enters the market, some experts fear theft will skyrocket. "Kids see someone walking down the block with something they want, and they decide to punk him," says criminal defense lawyer Jason Steinberger. "I saw three kids the other day—they couldn't have been older than 15—all handing around a Treo 700. They either stole it or they found it. You could hear them saying, 'Oh, what do you think his password is?' "Don't be hatin'"The summer of 2003 was the gayest summer ever," says Clarence Patton, executive direc-tor of the NYC-based National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), which addresses crimes against the LGBT and HIV-affected communities. Gay characters were all over the tube: Boy Meets Boy, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Six Feet Under, Will & Grace—"even Ellen came back," Patton jokes.But all the exposure, coupled with the national hotbed issue of gay marriage rights, created a backlash. "The rhetoric of the right wing reached a fever pitch," Patton says. "Sadly, it seems whenever you see that, you also see a spike in violence." NCAVP tracked a 26 percent increase in reports of anti-LGBT violence in New York City in 2003, and the numbers basically stayed at that peak in 2004. A 2005 New York Times analysis of four years of hate-crime data revealed that, of crimes involving a physical assault, the greatest proportion—38 percent—targeted the LGBT community. And the area where the most physical attacks occurred? The 9th Precinct, also known as the East Village.Patton says he expects 2005 numbers to plateau or even drop, but that he has his eyes on gay issues in the news all the time—for example, significant advancement of the right to gay marriage, currently moving through the courts systems in both New York and New Jersey, could trigger more antigay rhetoric, and violence."A lot of people think that this doesn't happen here in New York City," Patton says. "But it does."