New York City extends smoking ban to parks, boulevards

[El Presidente]

Bob Woods

New York City extends smoking ban to parks, boulevards

February 3rd, 2011 11:53 am ET

http://www.examiner.com/cigar-in-national/...arks-boulevards

New York City Council voted yesterday to extend its indoor smoking ban to a wide expanse of outdoor areas in the city’s 5 boroughs.

By a vote of 36-12, the city will in 90 days start enforcing a ban on smoking in 1,700 city parks and 14 miles of public beaches. Boardwalks, marinas and pedestrian plazas are also covered by the ban.

For smokers, this means no more lighting up in the city’s iconic locations like Central Park and Times Square. If a person is caught smoking a cigar, cigarette or pipe, they’ll be subject to fines of up to $100. The city expects its citizens to be the ones reporting violators, though, as police will not be responsible for enforcing the expanded ban.

“This summer, New Yorkers who go to our parks and beaches for some fresh air and fun will be able to breathe even cleaner air and sit on a beach not littered with cigarette butts,” New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said after the vote.

Some councilpeople who voted against the measure said it infringes on individual rights. “I truly believe government is being too restrictive in his particular matter,” said Robert Jackson, D-Harlem. “It’s a totalitarian society that’s going to have this type of restrictions … As someone who wants to breathe clean air, I think we are going too far and being intrusive.”

“The city is taking it too far. I think it’s ridiculous,” said 25-year-old New Yorker George Wells.

Other opponents question the risk levels associated with secondhand smoke.

An effort by Council Member Peter F. Vallone, Jr. to allow for designated smoking sections at public parks and beaches never made it into the final proposal. “It still has a lot of support,” Vallone said prior to Wednesday’s vote. “I’m disappointed leadership chose to move the original bill and not my compromise.”

In 2003, Mayor Bloomberg helped to usher in a smoking ban on indoor workplaces, including bars and restaurants, as well as in playgrounds at city parks.

....

[PADDYWHACK121272]

Oh please no! The lunatics have finally taken over...

[snickers99]

My fellow lovers of the leaf,

The say that in America we get the government we deserve. Those of us that live in representative republics must stop supporting and voting for politicians who make a virtue out of stripping us of our liberty for our own good. It is not enough to sit by and complain. Involve yourselves, people, or lose your rights one at a time. We must oppose every single incursion into our rights, freedoms, and liberties with calls, letters, and votes! These 'progressives' believe in governmental activism. Don't support 'em!!

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

C. S. Lewis

[Wicky]

Oh please no! The lunatics have finally taken over...

i'm afraid they've been in charge for quite some time now.

[Babaloo]

Fellow BOTL . Those who share the joy of smoking here in NY laugh @ this law . The fine is $100.00 . It's just like jaywalking . the word around town is ; people are going to go to City Hall where the Mayor office is & have a smokeout . I'll keep you informed .

[Hugomarink]

What crap! When I lived in NYC one of the great joys was going to Central Park on a beautiful day (or even a brisk fall day or a snowy winter day) and enjoying a fine smoke. The thing they don't understand is if NYers can't smoke in bars, or their cramped apartments, or outside, there is nowhere else to go. A-holes!

[thechenman]

Bloom berg is not missing the point...having nowhere for smokers to smoke is exactly what he wants.

[Puros Y Vino]

Funny.. a cigar is deemed to ruin the "clean air" but hundreds of thousands of cars in NYC going 24/7 is easier to breathe in? What stupidity.

[Guest Elektrobot]

I might be the odd one out on this, but I have no problem with smoking bans.

I don't want to inhale the smoke someone else just spit out of their lungs.

Nothing ruins a nice time through a park more than walking past a smoker who is insistent on mucking up my fresh air.

Lets face it, most smokers are cigarette smokers who smoke often and everywhere. It smells bad.

Having to put up my car widows at an intersection because the person next to me is smoking annoys the heck out of me.

I believe people have the right to peaceful enjoyment of fresh air, and that it's just plain rude to infringe upon that.

There is a time and place for everything, and I don't feel the need to ruin the ambiance of a non-smokers lovers walk through the park by billowing clouds of smoke out of my lungs towards them.

It's just rude and distasteful.

[Fuzz]

Politicians are very much like nappies, they need to be changed often and for exactly the same reason!

A ban should really be put on politicians as they too are ruining the air quality every time they open their mouths to spew this $#!^ out.

[PigFish]

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

C. S. Lewis

Hear, hear!

[Hugomarink]

I might be the odd one out on this, but I have no problem with smoking bans.

I don't want to inhale the smoke someone else just spit out of their lungs.

Nothing ruins a nice time through a park more than walking past a smoker who is insistent on mucking up my fresh air.

Lets face it, most smokers are cigarette smokers who smoke often and everywhere. It smells bad.

Having to put up my car widows at an intersection because the person next to me is smoking annoys the heck out of me.

I believe people have the right to peaceful enjoyment of fresh air, and that it's just plain rude to infringe upon that.

There is a time and place for everything, and I don't feel the need to ruin the ambiance of a non-smokers lovers walk through the park by billowing clouds of smoke out of my lungs towards them.

It's just rude and distasteful.

I understand the point, but there are plenty of nasty smells (especially in NYC) that people make and they aren't outlawed. How about the person in the elevator next to you wearing too far too much cheap cologne? Or the truck double-parked spewing diesel fumes as they unload their goods? Believe me, walking down the streets and avenues of NYC and going through a cloud of cigarette smoke is probably one of the least noxious and annoying fumes that any New Yorker has to deal with throughout the course of the day. I used to love walking around in Manhattan and getting a whiff of somebody smoking a cigar or a pipe. That smells good to me. Yeah, cigarettes stink, but they're pretty minor on the nuisance scale when you're in NYC.

[MIKA27]

Fellow BOTL . Those who share the joy of smoking here in NY laugh @ this law . The fine is $100.00 . It's just like jaywalking . the word around town is ; people are going to go to City Hall where the Mayor office is & have a smokeout . I'll keep you informed .

NICE!!

[habanohal]

its not all freedom here...lol

[Kangaroo495]

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

C. S. Lewis

Wow, I never heard that quote before, but it pretty much sums up why I live in Russia (well, it's definitely not for the beaches). A stunningly accurate description.

Gents, feel free to visit me here any time you please! But a word of warning - you may never leave!

I feel for you guys in the States. Hang in there!

[anacostiakat]

That is a great C S Lewis quote.

Brothers and sisters in the states you need to join and support the CRA. Support and promote politicians that you can relate to and dump the chumps you can not.

[snickers99]

"When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where

they make no pretence of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where

despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic]."

Abraham Lincoln

The above quote was made in reference to the enslavement of blacks in a land where "all men are created equal". I think it also applies to our situation in America today. We are a nation founded upon the novel belief that the rights of individual citizens ought to be preeminent. There are those among us who hate the liberty of their fellow Americans. They prefer control of the populace because this satisfies their desire of utopian ends. Smoking in public seems a small liberty to lose - until you begin to catalog the loss of freedoms at the hands of politicians and their bureaucrat minions. The history of mankind is Tyranny. Democracy is a recent exception to this rule. Let it slip away by parts and it will not rise again for a thousand years. I had high hopes for Russia and China. Their long histories are of tyrants and mass blood letting. What disappointment to see gangsters rise from the nightmare of collectivism. Freedom is on the retreat in our world. I'm afraid that western nations are hopelessly hamstring by progressive (socialist) ideology and are unable to come to liberty's defense.

[scinmyheart]

Bloom berg is not missing the point...having nowhere for smokers to smoke is exactly what he wants.

exactly

[tigger]

The city expects its citizens to be the ones reporting violators, though, as police will not be responsible for enforcing the expanded ban.

WTF does this mean? No ticket unless someone complains?

[tmac77]

Dogs craping and pissing all over city parks and beaches have more rights than smokers these days.

[snickers99]

WTF does this mean? No ticket unless someone complains?

Yes, we're invited to all become citizen-snitches! This sort of civic participation worked well in Nazi Germany and the USSR!

[PigFish]

I think what one needs to understand is that this is a means to enhance revenue, not protect people from the boogie man! This is simply put, taxation by statutory fiat through the criminal justice system. No one expects people to stop smoking. They expect them to puff out their chests and pay the fine.

Few people seem to understand innate rights and the difference that exists between them and entitlement. One has the right to filter ones own air via various instruments if one desires. What some want is to target certain emissions of others while being immune from similar constraints.

When a government entity has the usurped the authority to control the air inside your private property, they have demonstrated that they can control any aspect of your life that they wish to control. They simply find authority in the majority.

Unfortunately this is democracy in action! The majority controls the behavior of the minority through unjust yet popular law and oppresses them. Once we begin to teach that democracy is used in a constitutional republic as a process and NOT as the birthplace of rights, we may once more understand that our natural rights emanate from our Creator, or in more secular terms, are innate to man, and therefor not granted by another man for him to revoke by fiat, or them to revoke via a democratic process. -Piggy

[Puros Y Vino]

Dogs craping and pissing all over city parks and beaches have more rights than smokers these days.

Man...don't even get me started on that. I like dogs but some owners need a good smack across the head.. Especially the ones living in 300 sq ft condos with two great dane sized dogs.

[snickers99]

...our natural rights emanate from our Creator...

Quite right, Piggy! 'rights' given by man can be taken by man. Rights given by our creator can only be taken by our creator. Is it any wonder that secular progressives are trying so hard to separate our government from from our God? They seek to stand in God's place; conferring rights to some and not to others, to replace natural rights with 'rights' of their own choosing, and to control the vast population of citizens according to the secularist's desires. The strategy is one of incrementalism. Freedom is to suffer the death of ten thousand cuts. We must oppose them every chance we get, no matter how innocuous the intrusion into our liberty seems.

[Guest Elektrobot]

I understand the point, but there are plenty of nasty smells (especially in NYC) that people make and they aren't outlawed. How about the person in the elevator next to you wearing too far too much cheap cologne? Or the truck double-parked spewing diesel fumes as they unload their goods? Believe me, walking down the streets and avenues of NYC and going through a cloud of cigarette smoke is probably one of the least noxious and annoying fumes that any New Yorker has to deal with throughout the course of the day. I used to love walking around in Manhattan and getting a whiff of somebody smoking a cigar or a pipe. That smells good to me. Yeah, cigarettes stink, but they're pretty minor on the nuisance scale when you're in NYC.

To me the existing conditions you mention above are a supporting argument for legislation like this.

If there is already so much wrong, why perpetuate the problem?

Be selfless and understand that not everyone who is outside wants to have you exhale smoke in their personal space.

It's just common sense when behaving like a courteous person.