NYC outdoor smoking extinguished from May 23

Source: Reuters

Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed legislation into law Tuesday that bans smoking in many public spaces around the five boroughs. Under the new law, smoking will be banned in the city’s 1,700 parks and 14 miles of public beaches. City pools and recreation centers will also be smoke free.

The bill bans smoking in city pedestrian plazas, like in Times Square, as well. Violators could face a $50 fine. However, in the past, the mayor has said that the city will rely more on signs and social pressure than enforcement.

The goal is to reduce secondhand smoke and trash. But those who spoke with NY1 earlier in the day in Union Square were split as to whether this new legislation is a positive thing for the city.

"There's a lot of kids and all that second-hand smoke, it's killing everybody so I think it's a good idea," said one New Yorker. "Sometimes you are walking, other people smoke and they blow the smoke in your face, so that's not good," agreed another.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110222/us_nm/us_smoking_newyork_1

Add this to the reasons why.

Let's be serious here, you have a cigarette, you say the wrong thing, you're getting fined.

:smoke:

:scared:

as opposed to a field in Central Park, 50 yards away from anyone...good move :eyes:

Bloomberg fancies himself a little dictator, trying to organize other people's lives. No one I know in New York, smoker or not, gives a crap if other people are smoking outdoors.

More helpful to the health of New Yorker would be to scale back the rent control increases that his landlord-cozy boards have imposed, and which literally killed a neighbor of mine (heart attack from the stress).

Fuck you Mike, and the horse you rode in on.

Agreed.

New Yorkers are great. Bloomberg sucks.

This move will likely be cheered by some DUers. I will not debate them.

:eyes:
and a link for good measure
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/survey-finds-street-level-air-pollution-in-manhattan/

Poor New York. There's no one but wussy yuppies left.

This is just one more thing making NYC more and more like the world's largest shopping mall. God, rich people are just adorable.

People who picture New Yorkers as nothing but millionaires and Fifth Avenue as representative of all of New York only know the place from 'Sex and The City.'

I know that not everyone there is rich, and I don't think I really implied that, but the people running the place and the people they're running it for sure are. However, "not rich" by New York standards is more well off than in a lot of other places. The other week, just out of curiosity, I decided to look at New York apartment prices; shit! For even some of the cheapest studio apartments landlords wanted income guarantees above 40k a year. That may not be rich, but it's a hell of a lot more than I've ever made.

You should totally talk to the militant cyclists in Portland.

:evilgrin:

I find it repulsive. I'm all for this. The less smokers, the better for all of us. They're nothing but a load on all of us... jacking up insurance rates, stinking up the world. I welcome this.

They die sooner. Taking them off the sick list earlier. What's cheaper a chain-smoker who checks out early? Or a vegan who ends up in assisted dying for another 30 years? Death by lung cancer at 60? Or death by some other cancer at 90? If you really want to save on health insurance, just hope we all die of fatal cardiac arrest. We just have a pay for the ambulance and the hearst. We all die of something.

Just this last December I was in a smokey bar in Queens where they put out paper cups as ashtrays after 9pm. The smoking ban in bars has been around for 10 years. It is rarely enforced in the neighborhoods.

she's a smoker and an NYC resident.

Thanks a heap, "Tiny Fascist'! :sarcasm: