Mark Lennihan /AP

Cigarette packs, like these in a New York convenience store, will have to be hidden under a new law proposed by Mayor Bloomberg.

The mayor of a tiny village that tried to ban stores from displaying cigarettes has a message for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg as he attempts to do the same thing.

Good luck.

Mayor Michael Kohut, of the Village of Haverstraw in upstate New York, said the town board had to repeal its ordinance after Big Tobacco came after them with a federal lawsuit that would have cost the community -- population 11,000 -- hundreds of thousands in legal fees.

"They brought their full forces to bear and it was going to be a long, drawn-out, expensive process." Kohut said Tuesday. "I said unless someone wants to pay for this, I can't pass this onto my village."

As part of the settlement, the town rescinded an ordinance that would have forced retailers to keep tobacco products out of public view.

Andrew Gombert/EPA

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to force stores to hide tobacco products. A small-town mayor who tried to do the same thing says Bloomberg should be ready for a legal battle.

Lawyers who represented a retailers' group and tobacco companies in the case, including prominent First Amendment expert Floyd Abrams, did not return calls.

But it seems likely that if Bloomberg's proposed measure passes the City Council and is signed into law, it will face a similar legal challenge on grounds that it violates shopkeepers' freedom of speech.

"We're considering all the options, from political to legal," said Brad Gerstman, counsel to the New York Association of Grocery Stores, who noted that Bloomberg's recent efforts to ban super-size sodas and force stores to display gruesome anti-smoking ads have been shot down.

"The only people who can put up a fight are big industries," Gerstman said of the city's public-health crusade. "The soda industry has won and tobacco has won but the city is notorious for grinding people down."

The mayor -- who has been lampooned as Nanny Bloomberg by some critics -- has championed health reforms for a decade. His initiatives include banning trans fats, forcing restaurants to post calorie counts, pressuring hospitals to remove junk food from vending machines, and making baby formula less accessible on maternity wards.

He asked restaurants to reduce salt by 25 percent and pushed through new rules that sharply limit the sale of sugary drinks bigger than 16 ounces. The latter was just struck down by judge who called it "arbitrary," and the city is appealing.

While obesity is one obsession, smoking is just as big a target. In 2002, the city banned it in bars and restaurants and in 2011, it was stamped out at parks and beaches.

The mayor said his efforts are paying off: life expectancy in the city is now three years longer than it was a decade ago.

The latest proposed law is aimed at reducing teen smoking. The mayor and his health advisers argue that displaying tobacco products near candy and groceries sends young people the message there's nothing wrong with smoking and increases the chance they'll try it.

Kohut agrees with his big-city counterpart.

"Anything we can do as government to prevent teenage smoking is a good thing. I watched my mother get sick and die from smoking-related disease," he said. "I felt good making an effort but I'm not Don Quixote swinging at windmills."

New York City has deeper pockets than Haverstraw, and the mayor has an entire Law Department at his disposal. In a statement Tuesday, the agency said because concealing cigarettes cuts down on smoking among kids and adults trying to kick the habit, "the proposed regulations are consistent with the First Amendment."

The New York Association of Convenience Stores, a plaintiff in the Haverstraw case, said it's reviewing the proposed law.

"It's premature to indicate whether any legal action is warranted," said the group's president, Jim Calvin.

Gerstman said he's hopeful the proposal won't be approved even even though the head of the City Council said she was "very open" to it.

"The mayor has gone into a nutty world of radical social agenda," he said. "I'm not certain the City Council in an election year will support it."

In Haverstraw, the mayor will be watching closely -- and rooting for Bloomberg.

"If the city prevails, I would think you would see a flood of communities pass something like this," Kohut said. "We’d be happy to pick up the gauntlet."

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This story was originally published on Tue Mar 19, 2013 2:21 PM EDT

If New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg gets his way, stores won't be able to publicly display tobacco products and will have to keep cigarettes under the counter or behind curtains.

The legislation announced Monday is the latest public-health crackdown by the mayor, whose ban on super-sized sugary soft drinks was shot down by a judge last week.

The proposed law would "prohibit display of tobacco products" in most retail shops, Bloomberg said. "Such displays suggest smoking is a normal activity and invite young people to experiment with tobacco."

He said it would be the first of its kind in the nation.

A second law would impose new rules to make it harder to sell smuggled cigarettes.

"These laws would protect New Yorkers, especially young and impressionable New Yorkers," Bloomberg said at a Queens hospital, adding that a decline in youth smoking has stalled out with about 8 percent of young people lighting up.

The New York Association of Convenience Stores, which has 1,600 members, called the proposed ban on displays “absurd.”

“I can’t think of another business that is selling legal products that is being forced to hide them from public view,” said association president Jim Calvin. “Businesses have a fundamental right to communicate with customers.”

He said he hoped the City Council would reject the bill after it’s introduced later this week. If it passes, the National Association of Tobacco Outlets predicts it will be overturned by the courts.

“Retailers are responsible business people that go to great lengths to prevent sales to minors, and there are First Amendment protections that extend to advertising,” said Tom Briant, executive director of the group.

“You’re talking about a basic right under the Constitution. If you do this with cigarettes and tobacco products, what else is going to have to be out of view? Wine and spirits? It’s a very slippery slope.”

After the town of Haverstraw in upstate New York passed a similar ordinance last year, retail and tobacco groups sued and the board repealed it.

Sunny Parikh, who has operated a Midtown Manhattan newsstand for 20 years, wondered where he would put the cigarettes he sells, which are in slots at the top of his cramped kiosk. He also questioned whether the initiative would reduce youth smoking.

“If kids want to smoke, they’ll find a way,” he said.

City officials, though, said the point of the display ban isn’t to prevent kids from buying cigarettes, which is already illegal; the idea is that lowering exposure to the products reduces the chances a young person will try smoking in the first place.

Bloomberg has made public-health campaigns a hallmark of his administration and boasted that life expectancy in the city is up three years since 2001. He has also crusaded against salt in restaurant foods and junk food in vending machines and required calorie counts on fast-food menus.

A new policy sharply limiting the sale of 16-ounce sugary drinks was supposed to take effect last week, but a judge put a stop to it, ruling it was “arbitrary and capricious.”

Related:

Bloomberg confident NYC will win appeal on soda ban

Allison Joyce / Getty Images

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, seen here holding a super-size soda cup while promoting a crackdown on sugary drinks, has announced a new public-health campaign to shield cigarettes from public view.

This story was originally published on Mon Mar 18, 2013 12:06 PM EDT

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. - A San Francisco suburb on Monday banned smoking in duplexes, condominiums and other multi-family homes, with city leaders saying they hoped to lead a wave of such regulations across California and ultimately the country. 

The City Council in San Rafael, a community of 57,000 people about 15 miles north of San Francisco, voted unanimously for the ban, following a handful of other California municipalities that have outlawed smoking in buildings with as few as two units. 

"We are happy to blaze a trail," Mayor Gary Phillips said before the vote. "We're most happy to be in the forefront of the issue because we think it will greatly benefit our residents and those visiting San Rafael, and we think it will set the tone for other cities as well." 

Tobacco-control experts predicted that the tough smoking ordinance in San Rafael could touch off a larger movement in other states and cities. 

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"The San Rafael ban is a very significant event because it will spread," said Robert Proctor, a Stanford University history of science professor. "We're on the downslope of a big curve. Smoking peaked in 1981 with 630 billion cigarettes sold in the United States. Now it's down to 350 billion. And that number will keep on going down until smoking is a distant memory." 

San Rafael is the state's ninth municipality to completely restrict smoking in multi-unit housing, said Pam Granger, advocacy manager for the American Lung Association in California. Granger said California was the only state where local jurisdictions have banned smoking in homes. 

Supporters of the San Rafael measure say it would protect bystanders from the health hazards associated with secondhand smoke, a known carcinogen that can seep through ventilation ducts, doorways and open windows in residential units with shared walls, California Watch reported. 

Although the ordinance has generally been supported by residents who have spoken at city council meetings, the proposal has set the stage for a fierce fight over how far the government should go in regulating peoples' private lives. 

"This proposed smoking ban actually intends to punish people for what they do in their own homes," Thomas Ruppenthal told the city council. "I really feel this is tyranny." 

City officials say they have received roughly 30 emails and calls from residents who say the ban would leave smokers with few places to go, California Watch reported. 

The ordinance also would prohibit smoking on San Rafael's downtown streets - the backdrop for parts of the 1973 film "American Graffiti." 

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When George Lucas filmed his coming-of-age movie in his hometown in 1973 people smoked at work, on airplanes, in restaurants, even in schools and hospitals. It was not until 1977 that neighboring Berkeley became the world's first city to restrict smoking in restaurants. 

California restaurants and most workplaces went smoke-free in 1995, and bars, once a smokers' haven, followed in 1998. California and three other states now restrict smoking in cars with children. 

Secondhand smoke kills an estimated 50,000 Americans, including 430 infants, a year, according to a 2006 U.S. Surgeon General's report. It concluded that concentrations of cancer-causing and toxic chemicals might be higher in secondhand smoke than in the fumes that smokers directly inhale. 

California municipalities have used the report to prohibit smoking in apartments and other multi-family homes. In some cases, the laws apply only to new construction or to just a percentage of a housing complex's units. 

But the restrictions have become increasingly strict, and San Rafael's ordinance applies to all homes, new or existing and rented or owned, with shared walls. 

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