If New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg gets his way, stores won't be able to publicly display tobacco products and will have to keep cigarettes under the counter or behind curtains.
The legislation announced Monday is the latest public-health crackdown by the mayor, whose ban on super-sized sugary soft drinks was shot down by a judge last week.
The proposed law would "prohibit display of tobacco products" in most retail shops, Bloomberg said. "Such displays suggest smoking is a normal activity and invite young people to experiment with tobacco."
He said it would be the first of its kind in the nation.
A second law would impose new rules to make it harder to sell smuggled cigarettes.
"These laws would protect New Yorkers, especially young and impressionable New Yorkers," Bloomberg said at a Queens hospital, adding that a decline in youth smoking has stalled out with about 8 percent of young people lighting up.
The National Association of Tobacco Outlets, a trade group that represents 27,000 stores nationwide that sell cigarettes and cigars, predicted the law, if passed, would be overturned by the courts.
“Retailers are responsible business people that go to great lengths to prevent sales to minors, and there are First Amendment protections that extend to advertising,” said Tom Briant, executive director of the group.
“You’re talking about a basic right under the Constitution. If you do this with cigarettes and tobacco products, what else is going to have to be out of view? Wine and spirits? It’s a very slippery slope.”
Bloomberg has made public-health campaigns a hallmark of his administration and boasted that life expectancy in the city is up three years since 2001. He has also crusaded against salt in restaurant foods and junk food in vending machines and required calorie counts on fast-food menus.
A new policy sharply limiting the sale of 16-ounce sugary drinks was supposed to take effect last week, but a judge put a stop to it, ruling it was “arbitrary and capricious.”
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