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Bloomberg Makes Case for Banning Bus Stop Smoking

By DNAinfo Staff on March 4, 2011 11:52am

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A "No Smoking" sign at a bus stop in Seattle.
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Flickr/clappstar

By Jill Colvin

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

MANHATTAN — Mayor Michael Bloomberg made the case Friday for banning lighting up at city bus stops, arguing that non-smokers should never be forced to inhale cigarette fumes.

A week after signing a law to ban smoking in parks, beaches and pedestrian plazas, Bloomberg compared smoking at bus stops to smoking in restaurants and bars.

"Now you can say, well, they shouldn't be standing near me, but if you're smoking, for example in a bus stop, people have to take a bus...And so it's like the workplace," Bloomberg told WOR's John Gambling during his weekly radio sit-down.

"The argument for not smoking in bars and restaurants and places like that is that the people that work there shouldn't have to choose between their job and their health," he said. "If you have to make that choice, we don't think you should."

While he said that City Hall has received calls from a number of people requesting a ban, he said the administration is not actively pursuing one now.