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When the Health Department first announced a plan to ban smoking in public parks and beaches run by the city, Mayor Bloomberg seemed caught off guard, and backed away from a full ban, saying, "Our Police Department has enough to do. They can't be going around giving tickets [for smoking]."
But speaking to the Bay Terrace Community Alliance last night, the Mayor expressed a new commitment to the idea, telling Queens voters, "The public is overwhelmingly in favor of banning it in parks as well. So, you know, we'll get that done." It's unclear how Bloomberg knows the public is "overwhelmingly in favor" of the ban, but still, it would be nice to see the city's beaches look a less overwhelmingly like ashtrays.
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Can the city please ban smoking while WALKING? I'm serious. How many other nonsmokers (pregnant nonsmokers, nonsmokers with asthma, nonsmokers who have watched a loved one die of emphysema) get caught on a busy sidewalk behind somebody exhaling smoke and there's no way to avoid it? Or the WORST is people who take a last puff before they go down into the subway and exhale in the stairwell where we're trapped in with that stinky crappy cancerous smoke.
well if that's the case, they should ban people from wearing perfume or cologne inpublic, which causes me debilitating migraines, you know, its all just a matter of common courtesy. I smoke, i do NONE of the things you mention above, maybe because i am concious of the fact it does bother others. But so do obnoxious coffee drinkers, flailing their scolding cups around in conversation and having that spill on me or worse hit me in the face. It's ALL a matter of hu7man decency and respect for one another, but EVERYTHING can be scrutinized, does that mean we all have to fored to live in some government enforced bubble? I didn't realize we had become a communist city.
"its all just a matter of common courtesy."
no, it's a matter of you spreading cancer to people.
If it's really lung disease you're concerned about, I'd worry a little bit more about the fact that every second vehicle on the road in this city seems to be an SUV. I mean, what a practical vehicle in a congested city of over eight million people.
I agree. Cars, trucks, SUVs and whatever vehicles people drive are way worse for our health than OUTDOOR (diluted) second hand smoke. Also if the city keeps banning people's activities, pretty soon we're not going to be allowed to talk on our phones or listen to music on the street because it bothers someone. Nothing makes everyone happy and no one likes everything.
There are restrictions on cars idling for this reason. I totally sympathize with folks who get headaches from perfume and cologne and folks who don't like the smell of farts but there is not huge legal precedent linking public farting and perfume to health risks whereas there are legal precedents linking car exhaust and cigarette smoke to health risks. And I don't like the lowest common denominator argument that cities have to be polluted and unhealthy.
Can they ban eating fatty foods in public as well? We all know that stuff is bad for you and causes cancer. It's gross and disgusting. Oh and ban sneezing, coughing and looking like shit while we're at it.
anything else bother you gpt? spitting, farting, or chewing gum?
please let us know so we can make them criminal acts.
If something about your personal history makes second hand smoke particularly "risky"/offensive to you, maybe you should take your privileged, entitled ass back to the suburbs where you can raise your precious spawn in a hermetically sealed health dome.
Otherwise get used the site, smell and sound of other human beings doing things that occasionally you might not agree with.
how about banning "smug" in public places? what would bloomberg do then? huh?
REALITY CHECK, your username.
The irony.
It burns.
REALITY CHECK, your username.
The irony.
It burns.
How about fining smoking morons who swing their arms wildly while holding a cigarette in their hands ??
Micro managing people is dumb, but so is making sure your jacket doesn't get ****ed up because of how careless most smokers are.
The public also wanted term limits...
You beat me to it.
Honestly this city is turning into an embarrassment. If i hear this douche say one more thing about our great cops when in reality 90% of what they're doing goes against every moral and ethical code any of us should adhere to as human beings, i'm gonna pull my own ears off just to make it stop.
I want people who fart in public ticketed. Those fumes can't be good for you either.
Suggestion for the mayor: go after graffiti vandals, it's more of an election year winner than your anti-smoking jihad is.
as we move towards legalizing marijuana in certain capacities, we conversely march towards prohibition of tobacco. the nanny state will NOT bow to common sense.
In addition require food cart vendors to install filtration systems, or ban them as well.
The Nanny Campaign is full swing.
can we ban smoking on elevated train platforms? it's still mta property & part of the system, so smoking should be prohibited.
It is; I've seen people get ticketed at Smith & Ninth Street.
first thing i got busted for in nyc - they were on me quick too.
It is illegal.
Yeah i thought it already was illegal? But the funny thing is, i am in bklyn where all the construction is going on, on the express lines, and guess who's out there smoking every time, morning or night, the workers wearing the MTA Contractor vests as they work on the platforms. Yet another case of hierarchy wins...
Yep it is illegal under the Rules of Conduct to smoke "in any facility or conveyance." Of course it's probably more likely that someone can get away with it on an outdoor platform, because only people nearby and downwind will smell it. Light up underground and even a copy on a different level or in a security booth will smell it.
By the way, it is legal to smoke on outdoor LIRR platforms. Those rules only ban it "on a train or in any indoor area within a terminal or station." That makes for odd situations like Woodside, where you can smoke on one platform but not on another that overlooks it.
the campaign is getting desperate.
did he bring bono or matt damon with him?
all these weird endorsements from people who can't even vote in this city?????
For fucks sake people, you don't like the cig smoke in your face (let me add that the entire second-hand smoke argument has always been GREATLY exaggerated)and the car exhaust that is far worse? Then move to the country. In restaurants sure, bars I've come around to, but outdoors? You have got to be fucking kidding me. People have dealt with it for ages, what next? Filtering subway steam cos it smells funny? We live in fucking New York, don't like it? Then move to Long Island.
Idiots
Will Bill Thompson get off his ass and say something??? Jesus fucking Christ Bloomberg is suffocating the media with his ads. Please Bill, say anything to let voters know you exist...
SECOND HAND SMOKE IS A JOKE. Ask the anti-tobacco folks to tell you what truly is in second hand smoke...when it burns from the coal its oxygenated and everything is burned and turned into water vapor..................thats right water..........you ever burned leaves in the fall...know how the heavy smoke bellows off.......thats the organic material releasing the moisture in the leaves the greener the leaves/organic material the more smoke thats made......thats why second hand smoke is classified as a class 3 irritant by osha and epa as of 2006........after that time EPA decided to change the listing of shs as a carcinogen for political reasons.......because it contained a trace amount of 6 chemicals so small even sophisticated scientific equipment can hardly detect it ........they didnt however use the normal dose makes the poison computation when they made this political decision. However osha still maintains shs/ets as an irritant only and maintains the dose makes the poison position.......as osha is in charge of indoor air quality its decisions are based on science not political agendas as epa's is. We can see this is true after a federal judge threw out the epa's study on shs as junk science......... Wednesday, March 12, 2008 British Medical Journal & WHO conclude secondhand smoke "health hazard" claims are greatly exaggerated The BMJ published report at:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7398/1057
concludes that "The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer are considerably weaker than generally believed." What makes this study so significant is that it took place over a 39 year period, and studied the results of non-smokers who lived with smokers.....
meaning these non-smokers were exposed to secondhand smoke up to 24 hours per day; 365 days per year for 39 years. And there was still no relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality. In light of the damage to business, jobs, and the economy from smoking bans the BMJ report should be revisited by lawmakers as a reference tool and justification to repeal the now unnecessary and very damaging smoking ban laws. Also significant is the World Health Organization (WHO) study:
Passive smoking doesn't cause cancer-official By Victoria Macdonald, Health Correspondent " The results are consistent with their being no additional risk for a person living or working with a smoker and could be consistent with passive smoke having a protective effect against lung cancer. The summary, seen by The Telegraph, also states: 'There was no association between lung cancer risk and ETS exposure during childhood.' " And if lawmakers need additional real world data to further highlight the need to eliminate these onerous and arbitrary laws, air quality testing by Johns Hopkins University proves that secondhand smoke is up to 25,000 times SAFER than occupational (OSHA) workplace regulations.
The Chemistry of Secondary Smoke
About 94% of secondary smoke is composed of water vapor and ordinary air with a slight excess of carbon dioxide. Another 3 % is carbon monoxide. The last 3 % contains the rest of the 4,000 or so chemicals supposedly to be found in smoke… but found, obviously, in very small quantities if at all.This is because most of the assumed chemicals have never actually been found in secondhand smoke. (1989 Report of the Surgeon General p. 80). Most of these chemicals can only be found in quantities measured in nanograms, picograms and femtograms. Many cannot even be detected in these amounts: their presence is simply theorized rather than measured. To bring those quantities into a real world perspective, take a saltshaker and shake out a few grains of salt. A single grain of that salt will weigh in the ballpark of 100 million picograms! (Allen Blackman. Chemistry Magazine 10/08/01). - (Excerpted from "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains" with permission of the author.) The Myth of the Smoking Ban ‘Miracle’ Restrictions on smoking around the world are claimed to have had a dramatic effect on heart attack rates. It's not true. http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7451/ As for secondhand smoke in the air, OSHA has stated outright that: "Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000)...It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded." -Letter From Greg Watchman, Acting Sec'y, OSHA, To Leroy J Pletten, PHD, July 8, 1997
-harleyrider1978
thank you.
agreed
good info.
Health issues aside, I wouldn't have nearly as much of a problem with smoking in parks etc. if smokers routinely cleaned up their mess rather than leaving butts and empty packs and used matches all over the place. You have a right to smoke, but that doesn't give you a right to litter.
This is exactly the point I was making above. Most people who bitch incessantly about cigarette smoke don't really care so much about the health implications, as evidenced by the fact that they seldom seem to go after the things you've mentioned here. It is more a case of looking down on others from their moral high horse for what amounts to an annoyance, at the very worst.
I do, however, agree with the comment about leaving the mess around, especially in parks.
Oops, that was supposed to be in response to Darius, but I guess I addressed your point too.
No, they actually don't have a right to smoke. There's no such thing as a "right to smoke."
Yeah there is. It's called the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. It's not even in the Bill of Rights, it's one of the inalienable ones.
Thank you. There is no right to smoke.
I would understand if it was within a certain distance from playgrounds or something, but all together in parks is just ridiculous.
Wouldn't it just create a wall of smoke at the edge of the park anyway? If you can't smoke inside people would smoke just outside like they do at bars and restaurants.
Let's ban everything. We can have robots follow people around. You people are whining wussies.
If you pretend to care for peoples health let's start with the corn subsidies, SUV's, coal. Smoking in parks, this is insane.
Orwells future seems lax in comparison with what you are proposing.
Ya know, it's like we're in fucking Lost Horizons looking for Shangri-La. Gotta take the sour with the sweet people.
when was the last time the mayor was at a public beach?
let's ban bbq's, coal fired ovens, wood burning ovens, burning leaves, new construction and old construction adhesives, asbestos, dog poo, and chlorine in water.
I am OK with banning smoking in beaches, something about a butt in the sand is gross, but then that's littering so give the beach patron a ticket for littering.
"The public is overwhelmingly in favor of banning it in parks as well..."
Hey Bloomberg, you fucking asshole - the public was overwhelmingly in favor of term limits too!!!
just wrote bloomberg and, knowing that won't work, wrote to RJ Reynolds for good measure. since letter writing rarely does the trick, i'm preparing for a large-scale "smoke in" at central park as soon as this affront to smoker's rights hits the books. viva la revolución!
Let me know when, i'll bring the ashtrays so we don't get in trouble for littering!
Readers and the Gothamist should know that "harleyrider" is no ordinary commenter. He's a spammer.
His specialty is hijacking message boards like the Gothamist's, manipulating them to function as his own free PR Newswire. His boilerplate is slammed onto every board in the country (Google him). He seems part of this weird cabal of maybe 10 rabid posters who try by sheer force of numbers to make their lies seem true, deluging boards with torrents of misleading sewage--like hr's tobacco-funded study, and his BAT-derived misrepresentation of a normal study. Hr's PR all goes back to tobacco, surprise!
Noise intended to drown out truth is a classic, documented tobacco industry tactic.
And it's all anonymous; bad-boy harleyrider doesn't DARE stand up to spew this swill out in the open in front of a legislative body, where he might have to account for himself or his misrepresentations. (Plus, he'd be too embarrassed when seen stumbling off the M1 bus' City Hall stop.)
Once the Flat Earthers, Holocaust Deniers and Birthers start following hareleyrider's scurrilous methods, message boards like the Gothamist's will soon become as useless as newsgroups are today.
you seem to be doing the same boilerplate thing here on gothamist, just for the opposing side.
Reply | September 23, 2009 1:50 PM [ report this ]
You're saying someone using force to halt a mugging is the same as the mugger's original assault. It's not. Duh.
It's a little different when the boilerplate is unprovoked. It seems you'd rather Gothamist readers take in some out-of-towner's widespread PR in ignorance. Wonder why?
gene thanks for the compliments.........your buddies like bloomberg may dump another million your way at tobacco.org...........gene borio tobacco control specialist........me Im a regular joe.......I get no money or even praise.....I do this because I hate it that they destroyed my favorite wafflehouse with the ban..........fight em and win.........2010 is 1994 all over again.
oh damn, this is getting interesting folks.
Bloomberg is a cancer on this city.
what has been really making me angry again is the overturning term limits.
that was so destructive and a threat to demcracy.
and then he has the nerve to say, "then don't vote for me" - while he's spending
millions and millions to the point of scaring weiner away and muting thompson.
pure dick.
I'm looking forward to the mayoral debate. it doesn't take much to get under his skin. all one needs is some captures of his expressions. we know he has all the major print media in his pocket.
Poll Results
Do you believe smoking should be banned at city parks and beaches?
Yes. It's a long time coming, too. 22%
No. It's a huge violation of smokers' rights. 75%
Not sure. 3%
Your data will always appear to support the special interest group that funds it.
I smoke a pipe not cigs. Can I be excused from the vitrolic ragings? ;)
I spent a little time checking out some of the sources harleyrider mentioned and it seems that they are legit. Moreover, I must admit I fall on the side of those who see the growing Nanny State in this society. Moralism has always been a central element in the campaigns of those groups who have sought to ban, outlaw and forbid carnal pleasures (for lack of a better term) they perceive to be "bad" for society.
Alcohol for a long time was (and to some still is) a great evil. Now, it's cigarettes and tobacco in general. Seeking to ban smoking from indoor places was just the first step, and maybe even one that ultimately offers more benefits than detractions. But where DO we draw the line. The paranoia and narodicism that would lead one to think that banning it PUBLIC parks is astounding, though perhaps inevitable.
We've already gone after the fatty foods/drinks. Next no loud playing of music (ear-damage could result), no cursing in public (too pyschologically damaging to the developing child or the morally upright).
What the fuck is wrong with you americans?
You are actually trying to ban everything that's bad for you.
Smoking in open, public places, drinking a god damn wine on your 'stoop' or porch....
Please stop trying to control everything a man does!!
Read the comments dumbass before you go off with this "you americans" nonsense.
Well, you're right I shouldn't have said that but it is kinda true that some people can really make a big deal out of nothing. Like smoke on the sidewalk. WHO cares? I rather smell some second hand smoke then the sweat of the over-sized fatty wiggling next to me.
Also, I've been to an openair movie in Piedmont park in Atlanta. Everything was fine, people drinking beers and smoking in the park. Everybody acted nice and things were just fine! But when I went to an openair movie in Central Park in nyc people were getting frisked, no drinks and no smoking allowed. I had to open my bagpack and I had to explain the friggin officer that that box full of fruit was my diner and not a bomb.
Common man! what the hell was that about?