Mayor Bloomberg: Let’s mandate tobacco be “out of sight” in stores

The control freak mayor of NYC is trying to strike again. Via CNN:

(CNN) –Β New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said his latest push to keep tobacco products out of sight is an attempt to de-glamorize the appeal of the product for kids and teenagers.

“Smoking is going to kill these kids,” he said Monday onΒ CNN’s “The Lead”Β in an interview with Chief Washington Correspondent Jake Tapper. “It’s going to leave them with not the great career prospects that you’d like, not the education that you’d like.”

The mayor said they’re trying to dissuade customers from viewing cigarettes as “normal.”

“Cigarettes are not a normal product,” he added. “They’re a product that kills the people that use it. And there are very few products like that.”

BloombergΒ announced the public health initiativeΒ earlier Monday, a week after a New York judgeΒ invalidated the city’s banΒ on sugary drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces.

The new tobacco legislation is made up of two bills: One that would require retailers to keep tobacco products hidden in stores, another would increase penalties for retailers who sell tobacco without a license or fail to pay tobacco taxes. It would also prohibit the sale of discounted tobacco products.

The three-term mayor said Monday the new bills are designed to continue New York City’s record in reducing smoking.

Breitbart’s Ben Shapiro comments:

Despite Bloomberg’s intense efforts to continue curbing young people’s smoking habit, the youth rate has remained the same since 2007, at 8.5 percent. Bloomberg’s proposal will be taken up at the City Council meeting on Wednesday.

[…]

Bloomberg denied that his primary motivation was monetary: β€œPeople always say, β€˜Oh, you’re doing these health things to raise money. No, that is not the reason. We’re doing these health things to save lives.”

It is surely only a matter of time before Bloomberg begins cracking down on the soaringΒ sexually transmitted disease rateΒ in his city by restricting personal sexual behavior, dictating sexual partners, and mandating the use of contraception.

I wouldn’t put it past him.

Aren’t tobacco products already restricted to people 18 years and older nationwide? If youth smoking is such an issue in NYC, why not, for starters, crack down on stores selling tobacco products to underage teens? Β  And if there is a “black market” for cigarettes, crack down on those, too. I know, makes too much sense for nanny state extremists like Bloomberg to understand …

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