Mayor Bloomberg hopes to stub out teen smoking by banning cigarette sales in New York City to anyone under age 21.
Adults who are old enough to volunteer for military service and who are entrusted with sacred civic duties such as voting for the city’s mayor might wonder why their mayor is trying to restrict their access to what is, after all, a legal product.
But those under 21 really needn’t worry. It’ll be easy to get around the proposed ban. Even with the law, teens would still be free to smoke and possess cigarettes legally; they’d just need to get older pals or their parents to buy their packs for them.
So it’s hard to see why Bloomberg is wasting the last bits of his political capital trying to pry Zippos from the hands of 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds.
Honestly — New York’s a town with a $70 billion budget, 350,000 employees and a City Council teeming with ambitious pols . . . and this is the brightest idea they’ve got?
If we were Freudians, we’d probably make more of Mike’s oral fixation. The mayor appears to be obsessed with what goes into New Yorkers’ mouths, be it salt, sugar, soda or smokes.
But that’s for another day. We’re more concerned with ensuring that the mayor’s meaningful reforms survive after he leaves office. And Mike should be, too.
At this moment, for example, the NYPD is on trial in federal court, where a judge looks set to issue a ruling that will make it easier for criminals to carry illegal guns.
But Mike’s mind is on his nanny bans.
Then there are the Democratic mayoral candidates who are vowing to dismantle his school reforms.
But Mike’s mind is on his nanny bans.
At the same time, every public-employee union in the city — 152 in total — has its members working on an expired contract. The unions are all biding their time until the arrival of the next mayor, from whom they plan to squeeze crushing concessions.
But Mike’s mind is on his nanny bans.
The mayor is free to spend his final days in office however he sees fit. But by focusing his time and energies on fluff like this new cigarette restriction, he’s putting his real achievements at risk. That won’t be good for the city, or for the mayor’s legacy.
There are only about 250 days left in the Bloomberg era. Our advice: Make ’em count.