Free Talk Live

City officials announced new legislation on Wednesday that would outlaw smoking in parks, beaches, marinas, boardwalks and pedestrian plazas throughout the city.

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Smokers have just one message for Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council members: butt out of our business.

“We’re outside. We should have freedom to smoke,” City Hall Park smoker Harvey Forbes told CBS 2’s Magee Hickey.

By a vote of 36 to 11 on Wednesday the City Council approved a bill to ban smoking in all city parks, beaches and pedestrian plazas.

The Geneseo Village Board has passed a law that makes it illegal to smoke in public parks or in the village parking lot.

The law was approved just last week at a village board meeting. Smokers will not be allowed to light up at all four of the village parks, that includes Highland Park, which village officials say is almost always busy with people and sports.

Smoking will also be banned in the Downtown Municipal Parking lot, even if you're smoking in your car.

The fines won't be cheap, they go all the way up to $250.

From Seth King at the Daily Anarchist:

"How To Privatize A Public Park"

In a graphic new ad campaign, the government is trying to shock smokers into quitting with the sometimes-gruesome stories of people damaged by tobacco products. The new effort confronts a hard truth: Despite increased tobacco taxes and bans in many public places, the adult smoking rate hasn't really budged since 2003. When argument, alienation, ostracism, and harassment don't work, the next step is to terrorize.

Telling a lie on public sidewalks in San Francisco would be prohibited under legislation proposed Tuesday by Supervisor Chris Daly, with repeat "fish stories" carrying a maximum penalty of $500 and 30 days in jail, though San Franciscans would be free to bear false witness elsewhere, such as parks, public buildings, and City Hall.

A letter to the editor declaring roads, parks and schools are public wealth. While private industry just extracts wealth.

In many states, Gary Richards would not have been able to light up a cigarette before biting into his meat-lover's pizza, as he did at Satisfaction Restaurant & Bar this week. But in North Carolina, the nation’s leading tobacco producer, limits on indoor smoking have lagged behind those in much of the country.

Iraqi government wants to ban smoking in public places.
"The purpose behind approving the draft law to fight smoking is to protect the people from the social, health, environmental and economic risks of smoking," said government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh in a statement.
Let freedom ring!
Maybe they should ban occupying foreign troops with guns first?