New York City council set to raise tobacco-buying age to 21

NEW YORK - Smokers younger than 21 may soon be barred from buying cigarettes in the nation's biggest city, where many local officials and public health advocates favor raising the tobacco-purchasing age to higher than all but a few other places in the United States.

New York City has become known for aggressive moves to curb smoking, and its city council was expected to set a 21-year-old age limit Wednesday for buying cigarettes, even electronic-vapor smokes. The council also was expected to set a minimum price for tobacco cigarettes, among other measures.

If the age increase passes, New York would be by far the biggest city to bar cigarette sales to 19- and 20-year-olds.

"This, I believe, is the next big thing for the city, and hopefully for the state and for the country," the proposal's sponsor, City Councilman James Gennaro, said before Wednesday's vote.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is expected to sign the measure. Officials previously shelved a plan Bloomberg unveiled with fanfare earlier this year: forcing stores to keep cigarettes out of public view until a customer asks for them.

The city's current age limit is 18, a federal minimum that's standard in many places. Some states and communities have raised the age to 19. At least two towns, in Massachusetts, have agreed to raise it to 21.

Advocates say higher age limits help prevent, or at least delay, young people from taking up a habit that remains the leading cause of preventable deaths nationwide. And supporters point to drinking-age laws as a precedent for setting the bar at 21.


"In order to control smoking by those younger than 18, this older age group is rewarded for their vote by stripping them of the very adulthood that allowed them to vote for these politicians in the first place," says NYC CLASH, a smokers-rights group that has sued the city over other smoking restrictions.

The tobacco-buying age is 21 in Needham, Mass., and is poised to rise to 21 in January in nearby Canton, Mass. The state of New Jersey is considering a similar proposal, and the idea has been floated in other places, including the Texas Legislature.

During Bloomberg's nearly 12 years in office, New York City has helped impose among the highest cigarette taxes in the country, barred smoking in restaurants, bars, parks and beaches and launched sometimes graphic advertising campaigns about the effects of smoking.


The idea was modeled on laws in Iceland, Canada, England and Ireland. But a similar measure had been rescinded in suburban Haverstraw, N.Y., after cigarette manufacturers sued. They said it violated their companies' free speech rights to communicate with consumers about their products' availability and prices.

Cigarette makers and sellers also campaigned against the New York City proposal, saying it overreached and would harm law-abiding businesses while helping illicit sellers.




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