This past Wednesday, September 15, 2010, Mayor Bloomberg of New York City proposed a smoking ban in Parks and Beaches. Are you kidding me?
According to poles most people feel that this is going too far, by taking peoples personal rights and freedoms away. Even Fox News, known to be conservatively bias, did a piece on how ridiculous this new law would be. Also stating how it is unreasonable for the government to determine how people live and what the rights of Americans should be.
On top of that, to enforce such a law that would include a ban on smoking in the pedestrian plazas some of which are in Time Square - where tourist from all around the world come - is unreasonable. Tourism could suffer from this. Imagine being a smoking tourist and a police men approaches you for smoking on the street and then fines you for it...would you want to come visit such a city again? Plus, it would mean that City Police man hours would be waisted on stopping smokers from smoking, rather than keeping the City safe from real crime.
As we know, the idea that smoking is bad for your health has been widely accepted as fact. And, though it may have some merit, studies on second-hand smoke are inconclusive, but tend to find minimal health risks associated with second-hand smoke. Be that as it may, in 2003, the Mayor along with The City Council, under the guise of concern for public health, pushed a law through to ban smoking in public places including the workplace. This law was kept under-wraps until it was already in effect, not giving those who may have opposed it an opportunity to suggest other, less extreme, measures of dealing with this issue. It totally abolished the rights of restaurant and bar owners to choose to have their establishment be a smoking or non-smoking business - not to mention that smokers are now openly treated as second-class citizens simply because they exercise their right to choose to smoke.
Now Bloomberg is trying to justify taking rights away even further by again using fear tactics. Armored with unfounded statements from people who are seen as credible, he justifies his proposed law by siting the dangers of second-hand smoke in the great out-of-doors without having any substantial evidence to support that claim. It's frightening that so many people are so easily manipulated by such claims. I believe it's just plain wrong to try to coerce people based on half-truths and to use social pressure to take individual rights away from citizens. And, I wish that as a free country, we and those representing us would act in concert with the spirit of our constitution and protect the rights of everyone, even when we don't agree with them.
This is an issue of individual rights, not the public health issue that it has been touted to be. I hope we can keep our eye on the ball and realize that as more and more freedoms are taken from us - be it the right to marriage whom we choose, the right to eat whatever food we enjoy most, or the right to smoke in public without being treated like a criminal- we run the risk of losing all our rights and freedoms as Americans. To stop this nonsense: Stop this ordinance from being passed. If you are a NYC resident call or email your City Councilman.
Weather you agree or disagree with the choices people make, if you believe that we all have the right to choose, than please take a stance to protect the rights of every individual to make his or her own choices. If we don't stand up, we could lose the freedom to make any choices at all.





