The NYC Council is Way Out of Bounds on Anti-Smoking Measures

The NYC Council has gone loophole closing crazy. 

Do you know, that if they pass the two latest bills in their relentless war on smokers that everyone in New York City becomes a potential smoker?  Not only that but a potential target of the cigarette police!

They've taken to redefining what constitutes a “cigarette.”  Here it is as it appears in Intro 1021-2013 – Sale of Cigarettes and Tobacco Products:

"Any roll for smoking made wholly or in part of tobacco or any other substance, irrespective of size or shape and whether or not such tobacco or substance is flavored, adulterated or mixed with any other ingredient, the wrapper or cover of which is made of paper or any other substance or material but is not made in whole or in part of tobacco."

Anything can be a "cigarette"! 

Anything can be conceivably "smoked." Just look to prison inmates who reportedly roll many things into "cigarettes" such as tea leaves wrapped in bible pages.

So too can anyone try to "light" anything in order to draw from it by mouth.  However, I point out also that "Any roll for smoking..." doesn't necessarily mean it must be lit, only that there be an intention (or consideration) of "smoking."

Whereby even a taco can be a "cigarette."  It's made of "any other substance, irrespective of size or shape," "the wrapper or cover of which is made of... any other substance or material..."

An ice cream cone, a leaf from a tree with bark in it...  all a "cigarette," according to this, if someone says or thinks it "for smoking."  I presume if someone puts a match to the end of it then it really is all over -- no question at all then it's a "cigarette."

(“You with the pixie stick!  I know what you plan to do with that.  Up against the wall!”)

In the council’s over-zealousness to make sure they've got “cigarette” covered (no doubt instructed by the anti-smoker organizations that provide them with the language for such proposals) so that no one gets away from their smoker-hating clutches they've proven themselves ridiculous.

And that’s not the end of their non-stop crusade to get every last smoker or anyone who even thinks about it.

In the same proposal there's this (all underscores mine):

"Retail dealer." Any person other than a wholesale dealer engaged in selling cigarettes.  For the purposes of this chapter, the possession or transportation at any one time of more than four hundred cigarettes by any person other than a manufacturer, an agent, a licensed wholesale dealer or a person delivering cigarettes in the regular course of business for a manufacturer, an agent or a licensed wholesale or retail dealer, shall be presumptive evidence that such a person is a retail dealer.
"Person" means any natural person, corporation, partnership, firm, organization or other legal entity.
Whenever a police officer... or a peace officer employed by the department of finance, including but not limited to the sheriff, undersheriff or deputy sheriffs  of the city of New York designated as peace officers..., shall discover (1) any cigarettes subject to any tax provided by chapter thirteen of this title, and upon which the tax has been paid and the stamps affixed as required by such chapter, but such cigarettes are sold, offered for sale or possessed by a person in violation of section 11-1303, 17-703 or 20-202 [all license related] of this code,... he or she is hereby authorized and empowered forthwith to seize and take possession of such cigarettes...

Got that? "More than four hundred cigarettes."  Four hundred cigarettes are equal to a measly two cartons.  So if you’re going to stay with friends for a while or heading out of town and want to bring enough cigarettes to cover the time you’ll be away, you cannot carry two cartons plus one more cigarette or more lest you find yourself presumptively guilty of being a dealer (thus needing a license) and your personal smokes confiscated and subjected to a fine. Note that the language is for otherwise perfectly legal (tax stamp and taxes paid) cigarettes.

Finally there’s their smoking gun (wait, that’s a “cigarette” now) – a tacit confession that all along smoking bans weren’t about the alleged need to protect nonsmokers from cigarette smoke.  It’s in this new legislative intent’s language.

All bills open with the sponsor(s) rationale for the proposal.  All three current anti-smoker proposals (one having been dropped just this week) contain the following:

"In 2002, the City launched a comprehensive program to reduce and prevent tobacco use.  By implementing multiple strategies -- including legislation restricting the use and sale of cigarettes and tobacco products..."  (emphasis mine)

As you recall, it was during 2002 that Bloomberg proposed and then signed into law the indoor smoking ban law that ended all exemptions and added bars, pool and bingo halls, etc.  This is what they refer to when said "In 2002..."

Go back to the city documents from that time (specifically from the Dept. of Health) and what they advanced as the rationale then was "protection from secondhand smoke."  For instance see these:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh//downloads/pdf/smoke/shsmoke.pdf

http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh//downloads/pdf/smoke/sfaa-brief-book.pdf

From those, it wasn't about a way to coerce smokers themselves.

From the DOH's FAQ sheet on the matter: 

Q: This is America. Don’t citizens have a right to smoke, even if it hurts them? 

A: Yes, smokers are free to continue to smoke—as long as they don’t expose others involuntarily to cancer-causing chemicals. American democracy has always created laws to protect society from threats to our health and safety. Sometimes limits must be imposed on the right of one individual to engage in behavior that, while acceptable if it affects the individual only, is harmful to others. (emphasis mine)

Only as a "by the way" do you find a stray mention about "also helping smokers to quit" in those documents.  Over 99% of their documents' texts are dedicated to "secondhand smoke" reasoning. By and large it was sold, and all we ever heard, as a "protection" law for non-smokers.

Yet in today's bills the "secondhand smoke" ruse is dropped and the intent of the smoking ban is described the way opponents always countered its intent really was:  "[T]o reduce and prevent tobacco use...[by]... restricting the use... of cigarettes..."   There is absolutely no mention of "secondhand smoke" in any of them.

Just like you’ll find no mention (as of this writing just one day prior) of what exactly is on the agenda for this Wednesday’s full council meeting on their web site’s calendar.  The meeting is noted, the details section is blank. Dirty deeds never get advertised and the perpetrators hide like cowards.

NYC Marathon: Bloomberg's Finish(ed) Line

Please. Stop the diplomacy!  The NYC Marathon might have finally been rightly cancelled but Michael Bloomberg deserves no “did the right thing” back pat -- like a reward you’d give a cab driver who found something valuable left in his cab and turned it in.   No, this is more like the hostage taker who “did the right thing” by letting the hostage go only because the villagers were beating him into a bloody mess.

 

The New York Post was the first to touch the raw nerve that many were already feeling about the party atmosphere of the race. Reporting on the misplaced resources exposed it further. Good for them! 

 

But don’t, in the follow-up editorial on its cancellation, calm it down to a conciliatory, “Bloomberg did the right thing yesterday.”   Or write, “But he had no choice,” after he said, “We would not want a black cloud to hang over the race or its participants, and so we've decided to cancel it.” 

 

There is no redemption for Bloomberg here.  There is righteousness in holding a grudge.  While it was the right thing to do I have little doubt it was for the wrong reasons.  Bloomberg didn’t try to do what’s best for the city; he did what’s best for him – for his legacy.  (And standing there without race sponsors is just one more way to look bad.)  Point the direction of hostility at who he will but anyone who’s had a finger on the pulse of this man all these years surely could agree that “the race” and “its participants” were mere stand-ins in that statement.  Rather, he didn’t want the black cloud to hang over him.

 

To offer “But he had no choice” is to credit him with eventually responding to the outcry of needs from the public when instead he was caring for his own needs.  His motivation was not burning shame.  It was cold calculation.

 

Maybe those who don't get the swell of outrage over the original choice to proceed with the marathon either don't live in the severely affected areas or very close by, or have friends/family who do, or who feel connected just because they used to live there. Or simply aren’t born and bred New Yorkers who played stickball and punchball in the streets and bled blacktop.  Be close to it in that way -- not just hearing about it on the news or as a transplant -- and Bloomberg's decision was a grotesque one. 

 

The hard hit victims of Hurricane Sandy are still –- post marathon Sunday -- dealing with its misery in too many forms to list but beginning with the loss of family and friends, entire homes and even whole neighborhoods and ending with no electricity, heat, hot water, food and gas. It’s an insult to portray the storm anywhere near as behind us.  No one would suggest that this overshadows 9/11 but in this case it’s like the planes are still flying into the buildings a week later and beyond.   

 

In a situation like this you don't act like a host of an event that has gala written all over it. It screams "yeah, yeah, whatever." 

 

A lot of one’s opinion on this controversy might ride on the impression Bloomberg has already left on them.

 

In the eyes of many, this interloper from Boston, who immediately perched himself at the top of an ivory tower, has treated NYC as a product. Something to sell. All about people from the outside like him. As if no one lives here. That the occupants are nothing but window dressing for all to come see like animals in their habitat at the zoo while they sight-see, shop, eat out and go to shows. This race is just one more tour Bloomberg has put on his travel brochure.

 

Bloomberg has no “New York” – as a very part of one’s being – running through his veins or in his heart.  That is the yardstick by which many measure him in decisions like this.  The New York City “yo!” stops with him. The mayor is supposed to project the very essence of the city on all’s behalf.

 

The point of blame rests at his self-centered feet, not the individual runners (done wrong too with short notice) nor really even the organization behind it.  Bloomberg is supposed to inherently know, as the representative of the local citizenry, how something like this would make them feel and relay it as policy.  Listen to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie talk  about the devastation in his state and it might as well be a resident of Seaside Heights speaking.  He’s totally connected.  He’s a New Jersyan. Listen to Bloomberg and he’s totally detached. He’s not a New Yorker. By Wednesday the latest he simply should have known that holding this race felt wrong, was wrong, and cancelled.

 

More proof that he’s so full of only himself is that he’d trade the safety and welfare of those crying out for more help for his own agenda. His ideology on gun control has gotten so twisted that he wanted to wave off the National Guard (who arrived anyway), explaining, “The NYPD is the only people we want on the street with guns.” 

 

His war on guns extends to "other" law enforcement officers?!? They’re our reserve military for cripes sake! Better that more stores/homes be at risk for looting or fewer hands available to aid in all facets of disaster relief than give the overstretched NYPD a hand (and residents an extra layer of comfort)? Does he even think of the NYPD in terms of humans who might like a chance to go home for a longer while to tend to their own families and personal losses and that more bodies – found in the Guard – will bring them that relief?  Does he even consider how many police officers lost their own cars to the sea while both on and off duty but make sure to get to work come… literally… hell or high water?  How does Bloomberg thank them?  By retreating into his fortress of extremism where insanity resides and everyone else is locked out.

 

And then there's the story about Bloomberg being the one to ring the bell for the reopening of the Stock Exchange. Sure, we all need that to be up and running but to choose that location (in terms of degree of devastation) as a symbolic gesture of might over the storm is the most elitist and cowardly display.  How about ringing a bell at a church in Rockaway, Breezy Point, Gerritsen Beach, Bergen Beach, Sheepshead Bay, Manhattan Beach, Brighton Beach, Coney Island, Sea Gate or Staten Island where people with New York in their heart never worried about sliding into the manhole cover that was second base?

 

With the hearing on the proposal to ban big sodas still days away, Bloomberg said then, “Nobody’s going to stop this.”  Never mind that the entire point of a holding a hearing is to give the public a chance to sway the outcome.  Happen, it did, as we all knew it would because if that’s what Bloomberg wants then that’s what Bloomberg gets.  The smoking, trans fat and soda bans and his third term are all testaments to that. Of Mike, By Mike, For Mike.  Remember, we’re just inhabitants in the Bloombergastan Zoo.  So his relenting (for whatever the reason) something he wanted makes Davids of those responsible – biblical in its proportion for doing what no one could ever do before.  Relish in it.

 

While the very concept of the living and breathing NYC is below his comprehension, the concept of our government is over his head.  He has said on more than one occasion, when defending his measures that trample on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that “If the role of government isn’t [to ban these things for your own good] then I don’t know what is.” 

 

This NYC Marathon episode seals it. That’s right, you don’t.