NYC Dept. of Health Anti-Smoking ads

The City has mandated that any place selling cigarettes has to display these grotesque posters, which are just nasty to look at. I am as anti-smoking as anyone and think people who smoke should be ostracized, should be denied health insurance or have to bear a much greater cost, etc. But as long as cigarettes are legal, this strikes me as the nanny state run amok. Here is a video that ran on NY1 about them. You risk a $2,000 fine if you don't put the poster up in your store -- many of the places are mostly food places. What do others think about this?

http://www.ny1.com/1-all-boroughs-news-content/112900/new-yorkers-divided-over-graphic-anti-smoking-ads-in-stores

 

Yeah, I don't get how the brain picture is disturbing. Obviously there's something wrong, but it's not like looking at a person. I remember as a kid seeing a public-service poster with an absolutely horrible-looking older woman smoking, and the tagline was "smoking is very glamorous." Can't remember where I was, but I remember that poster.

 

Regardless, should the city government be mandating that stores have to hang 19 X 20 posters of their choosing?

 

The guv'mint wants you to not smoke but also needs smokers' tax revenue. Make up your minds, already.

 

I'm not whining. I'm pointing out that if I am running a bagel store, like that guy is, I don't want the city forcing me to put pictures of blackened lungs on my wall. It would piss me off, and judging by the stories, half the customers in the place were put off by it.

And that is convoluted reasoning. It is LEGAL to sell cigarettes. Those posters are randomly being foisted on businesses engaged in a perfectly legal practice. This is not a role the city government should be playing. Either make selling cigarettes illegal or keep it legal. But this is as ridiculous as it is feckless. It isn't going to influence anyone's behavior, of course, and to me, it is a blatant example of random governmental intrusion in private enterprise, based on the societal goals of some unelected busy body.

My opinion. But I certainly didn't "whine" about it, as you put it.

 

1) Yeah, I find mandating that a bagel store put a 19 X 20 picture of a pair of blackened lungs near where people are ordering their food to be grotesque. Call that whining, if it suits you. It's my opinion.

2) The "they have a choice" is convoluted reasoning. As long as selling cigarettes is legal, their business is being infringed upon because the city government is mandating some random regulation on them that forces them to decorate their walls as the city sees fit, not as the business owner sees it best in order to promote his business. Either make selling cigarettes legal or make it illegal. But as long as it's legal, when you start doing silly things like fining anyone who doesn't display those posters $2,000 you are not giving people choices, as you put it. You are stepping on their toes and messing with people's business establishments.

That shouldn't be the city government's role.