By Olivia Scheck
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — Mayor Michael Bloomberg may seek to extinguish smoking in New York City's parks and beaches, he told the New York Times Tuesday.
The mayor did not immediately offer his support for the ban when city health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, suggested it, but he now appears to have been swayed by public sentiment.
“When you ask people in our parks and beaches,” Bloomberg said, according to the Times, “they say they just don’t want smokers there.”
Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death among New Yorkers, killing 7,500 people per year, more than AIDS, drugs, homicide and suicide combined, Farley told the paper in defense of the proposed ban expansion.
The health commissioner also pointed to an April 2009 study, which found that 57 percent of the city's nonsmokers show elevated levels of cotinine, a marker for smoking, compared to 45 percent throughout the country, the Times said.
Bloomberg said that cigarette-related litter was another reason for implementing the new rules, according to the paper.
A smoking ban for parks and beaches would likely have to pass the City Council before it could be put into effect, Farley told the Times.