NBCNEWS.COM - 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.
Bloomberg has also crusaded against salt in restaurant foods and junk food in vending machines.
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."
