Response To The Smoking Ban

Manhattan, New York. At the beginning February, 2011 Mayor Bloomberg announced his dedication to the stopping of smoking in public spaces such as plazas, beaches, boardwalks, marinas, and parks after receiving backing from the New York City Council to little reaction. The impending smoking ban will be placed in effect 90 days after signed by Bloomberg, making smoking less available and acceptable Statewide.

After the smoking ban of 2003 which saw the exile of smoking from restaurants and bar this annexation stands to add 14 miles of beach 29,000 acres of parkland to the law’s juristiction. When on his WOR-AM radio asked whether the ban would be enforced by police Bloomberg replied that: “The police will not be enforcing this.” He continued specifying that the New York Department of Parks & Recreation would be responsible for enforcing them.

This bill appears to smokers as the most recent threat to them and their right after steep tax markups in the cost of tobacco as well as more explicit anti-smoking propaganda. Interestingly the vote made by the New York City Council came out 36-12 in support of the ban. The threat of potential health risks, long-term damage to non-smokers through second hand smoke, has seemingly become evermore important.

On asking an official New York Department of Parks & Recreation employee in Chelsea Park (9^th/10^th avenue 27/28^th street) how he felt about his new responsibility enforcing the law replying that it would “… be weird at first but would eventually become just another part of the job.” He then joked about his job moving towards that of a cop. When asked his opinion of the smoking band and whether or not he personally was a smoker he replied “… he had mixed feelings toward the smoking ban. I’m not a smoker but I believe in a mans right to make his own decisions.”

Bloomberg also stated in his WOR-AM talk how he hoped that citizens would employ a tactic similar to peer pressure stating how he hoped: “…everybody's going to turn to you and say, 'Hey, you shouldn't be smoking.' And you know, most people listen.” Bloomberg’s hope for ‘vigilante’ anti-smokers seems a large part of his idealistic way of enforcing the amended smoking ban.

Peter Hintz, a Literary Studies major at the New York University and smoker spoke of the conflict between the smoker’s societal rights and his or her personal human freedoms. “Not only are there pictures of rotten teeth and black lungs hanging on the walls of deli’s, rolling tobacco is $10 a pouch, now I can’t have a smoke in a park.” When asked how he felt about Bloomberg’s idea of enforcing the law through other citizen’s he responded: “why would I listen to them, what can they do?” He furthered this stating that he thought, “… the inclusion of a proposed fine supported by practicing citizens and the New York Department of Parks seems a little to idyllic for this distopia!”

The question stands, will the soon to be imposed ban be enforced and respected, or will it pass unnoticed? As Mr. Hintz pointed out, heavily can such a densley-populated city rely on the New York Department of Parks and indiscriminate vigilantism? Finally, the over-arching question of great current importance: how much freedom can a citizen have in a society.