WCBSTV reports: From Coney Island to Central Park, banning smoking at New York City’s famous parks and beaches is the next goal of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s anti-tobacco crusade.
Bloomberg’s health commissioner, Thomas Farley, said Monday that parents shouldn’t have to breathe smoke while standing on the sidelines of their children’s soccer games, and children shouldn’t even have to look at adults smoking, he said.
“Smoking is responsible for killing over 7,000 New Yorkers a year,” Farley said. “We don’t think it’s too far to say that people shouldn’t be smoking in parks, and to try to protect our children from getting addicted to tobacco.”
New York City wouldn’t be the first local government to ban smoking in parks — other states, counties and cities have already done it, including in Utah, Louisiana, Maine and California.
But the nation’s largest city would be among the most ambitious urban efforts — New York has hundreds of parks and 14 miles of beaches.
Bloomberg, a former smoker turned tobacco hater, has waged a war on smoking since taking office in 2002. His administration banned smoking in bars and restaurants, raised taxes on cigarettes and has tried to scare smokers with gory advertising campaigns about smoke-related health problems.
The mayor revealed Monday that his anti-smoking agenda includes scowling at smokers “with not a particularly nice look” as he passes by them when they are gathered outside of buildings.
(Source: WCBSTV)
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6 Responses
More anti American laws being passed. This country is becoming one of the least free countries in the world. Besides how un-American this is, it is very dangerous for Jews who seem to have become complacent living under the “home of the free”.
PS- I’m not a smoker. That’s not the point. Its wrong to pass laws denying people their personal freedoms.
What a dictator I still hope that something should go wrong in the mayor election and he should LOOSE !
Ma Bein Yisrael Le’amim.
They want to ban smoking everywhere because they realize the danger and the discomfort that smoking causes to others. We as a Klal can not even get Bnei Torah to stop smoking inside buildings. It is a true Bizayon.
14 miles of coastline and still tens of thousands of new yorkers sweltering in the summer heat because this mayor cannot designate a beach for frum people. Yet his compassion is deep enough to worry about a few thousand people that may breathe a whiff of smoke for a few seconds being exposed to secondhand smoke in a gigantic open space park. How off the mark can one be?
Good! Get a handle on the bad habit of smoking cigarettes, smokers. You know you wish you could kick the habit so why get mad if non-smokers dont want to be around it. It is a health hazard to be outside and detect that foul smell and taste in your mouth.
At least somebody has some sense in their head. Second hand smoke is very hazardous. But imagine somebody going on an outing for fresh air like to the park and gets greeted with smoke from cigarettes and develops a headache, bad taste in their mouth, agitation… It just takes one cigarette to ruin somebody’s day.