It’s easy to mock the proposed law in a place like Times Square where not too long ago a billboard for Camel cigarettes blew giant smoke rings into the air. The square is filled with car exhaust, food cart vapors and other strange smells. What harm could a few extra cigarettes do?
“Well, there’s increasing evidence that you can be exposed to smoke outdoors in a way that’s really harmful to your health,” says New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Farley.
He says studies show that if you are within 3 feet of someone smoking outdoors, your exposure to secondhand smoke can be the same as when you are indoors. And though places like Times Square are choked with exhaust-spewing traffic, cigarettes are still worse.
“You know, we’ve done measurements and the levels of particulates, those are the particles that get in your lungs, are much higher from secondhand smoke than they are from car exhaust,” Farley says. “So you can get much higher levels from sitting next to a smoker than being at the entrance to the Holland Tunnel.”
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