First it was smoking in restaurants, then bars, then parks and beaches, and now city government is going after the casual smokers' daily cigarette or two. The Bloomberg administration is launching a television campaign aimed at "light" smokers, defined as those who smoke less than 10 cigarettes a day. The press release describes the new campaign: 
Back in September we noted that Mayor Bloomberg announced that the amount of New Yorker smokers was down to 14 percent. But then, we wondered what might be the next killer of our population. Could it be "getting old and dying?" Well, rest easy, because Mayor Bloomberg announced today that New Yorkers are doing well in the living long department. Not only are they are staying alive for longer than ever before, they are also beating the rest of the country in doing so. 
Island Smokes, the place where you can go roll your own cigarettes for way less than you'd pay for a regular pack, has decided to shut down on February 1st rather than face the city's lawsuit. 
The city filed suit against the store (there are two locations) in November. The press release about the lawsuit read:
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There are a handful of magical places in New York City where you can roll your own cigarettes and save considerable amounts of money in so doing. They're under threat, though, because the city has filed suit against the first two in existence. 
That hasn't stopped a third roll-your-own-smokes place from opening up in Sheepshead Bay. The Daily News reports that owner Jack Wang opened City Smokes last week without knowing about the lawsuits.
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Because apparently it doesn't have any bigger fish to fry, the city is suing a place called Island Smokes on Eldridge Street where you can roll your own cigarettes due to a tax loophole. This is problematic for Bloomberg because under the Island Smokes arrangement, you can get a pack for $2.95, way less than the approximately $1K we're all supposed to be paying now.
The city announced in a press release today that they're officially going to try and sue them out of business.
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| Taylor Momsen, teen smoker. |
New Yorkers, brave New Yorkers, have largely kicked that old, nasty, but sometimes oddly seductive habit of putting semi-flammable cancer-causing objects in their mouths and lighting them. Today Mayor Bloomberg said that the number of smoking New Yorkers is down to 14 percent. Back in 2002 the city counted 22 percent of puffing stalwarts among its ranks! There are 450,000 fewer adult smokers in New York than nine years ago, and also, even teens -- teens! -- aren't smoking. This along with the news that nobody does cocaine anymore could really mess with a person's belief in getting a nice unhealthy buzz on now and again. What are we, a land of wimps? 
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NY1 and Marist released a poll today about the two-month-old ban on smoking in public parks, beaches, and plazas. Sixty nine percent of respondents said they were in favor, although opinions were split on whether the new measures are actually working. More surprisingly, 40 percent of smokers said they like the ban. We turned to smoker's rights advocate Audrey Silk, an ex-cop who runs New York City Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment (NYC CLASH), for her perspective on the poll as one of the foremost champions of smoking in the city. Silk grows her own tobacco, which she says saves "thousands," and wouldn't tell us how long she's been smoking ("that's part of the anti-smoker's tactic to stigmatize"). 
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Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. And being able to smoke in your own apartment may soon be a thing of the past, if the New York Post's latest "entertainment" piece, featuring the battle between a non-smoker and her "chain-smoking next-door neighbor from hell" is any indication. "Jane," a 50-year-old journalist, is sick to death of her 1,000-square-foot one-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side reeking of cigarette smoke. "I feel like I'm living in a college dorm, and I just want to live like an adult," she says. (Do college kids even smoke these days?). Despite taping her outlets and sealing her windows, the pervasive odor of cigarettes, pot, and something smelling of plastic (hm) continue to waft in. Jane is in hell! However, the condo board won't do anything about it. Yet.
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