After the Mayor's Change of Heart Smoking to be Banned in New York Parks and Beaches

Earlier it had been said that a plan to ban smoking in the parks and beaches needed to be looked at, but Mayor Bloomberg stated he is going to push ahead anyway.

Bloomberg told the Bay Terrace Community Alliance at a campaign forum in northeast Queens on Wednesday night, "The public is overwhelmingly in favor of banning it in parks as well, so, you know, we'll get that done."

Initially, the mayor balked at the idea proposed by Health Commissioner Thomas Farley as he felt that enforcement of the ban would be too difficult.

But this Wednesday, Bloomberg's opinion seemed to have changed, "If you're in the middle of a park by yourself in the middle of the night, I suppose nobody else is breathing that smoke, but if you're there with other people playing around, those people breathe it."

The change of heart seems to come after Bloomberg's opponent Controller William Thompson told the group that if he were elected he would pursue the ban.

Thompson said, "The concept of a smoke-free park makes sense to me." Does it really? In that sense a concept for car-free roads makes even more sense. This is so stupid…

[Via: nydailynews.com]

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