New Laws To Reduce Smoking In NYC Will Raise Cost Of Cigarettes To $13 A Pack

Mayor Bill de Blasio signed a series of bills on Monday, August 28 to help reduce the number of smokers in New York City by 160,000 over the next three years.

While smoking rates in NYC have gone down from 21.5 percent in 2002 to 14.3 percent in 2015, there are still more than 900,000 smokers across the city, according to an announcement from the Mayor’s office. The Mayor hopes the new bills will help decrease the numbers to a historically low rate of 12 percent by 2020.

Tobacco use continues to be a leading contributor to preventable, premature deaths in NYC, according to the announcement, killing approximately 12,000 people each year.

The seven bills proposed by Mayor de Blasio will control smoking and tobacco in New York City by:

Raising the minimum price for all tobacco products and imposing a new 10 percent local tax on tobacco products other than cigarettes – The bill would raise the minimum price of cigarettes and little cigars to $13 a pack up from $10.50, and set a tax for other tobacco products such as cigars, smokeless tobacco, loose tobacco, and tobacco-containing shisha (hookah or water pipe). The ten percent tax is expected to generate $1 million in revenue annually which will be allocated to public housing.

Capping and reducing the number of tobacco retailers citywide – The bill would reduce the number of stores that can sell tobacco products by capping the tobacco retail dealer licenses in each community district at 50 percent of the current numbers. New York City’s high tobacco retail density has approximately 8,300 licensed cigarette retailers citywide, averaging almost 30 dealers per square mile, the announcement states. After ten years, this bill could reduce the number of tobacco retailers by up to 40 percent.

Increasing the fee for cigarette retail dealer licenses – The bill would increase the biennial fee for a new tobacco retail dealer license for all types of tobacco sales to $200 from the current $110 (every two years). There are currently 8,305 of these licenses issued in New York City.

Creating a retail license for e-cigarettes and capping the number of e-cigarette retailers – The bill would require that sellers of e-cigarettes be issued a license, similar to cigarette retailers. This bill would also would cap the number of e-cigarette licenses to half the current number by community district.

Requiring all residential buildings create smoking disclosure policies – Though residential buildings will not be required to adopt no-smoking policies, the bill would require residential building owners to create a policy on smoking and disclose it to current and prospective residents. All residential buildings with three or more units will be covered, including rentals, condominiums, and cooperatives.

Prohibiting smoking and the use of e-cigarettes in common areas in residential buildings with ten units or less – An expansion of the current law which already prohibits smoking in common areas of residential buildings with ten or more units, the bill would prohibit smoking and the use of electronic cigarettes in common areas of residential buildings with three or more units.

Banning the sale of tobacco products at all pharmacies – There are currently more than 550 pharmacies across the city licensed to sell cigarettes and tobacco products. The bill would prohibit pharmacies, or retail stores that contain pharmacies, from selling cigarettes and tobacco products. The law would go into effect after the current licenses expire in 2018.

“Even though tobacco is a leading cause of premature death across the country, Big Tobacco will stop at nothing to hook people on these deadly products,” Mayor de Blasio stated. “We are sending a loud and clear message that we will not let their greed kill any more New Yorkers without a fight. These new laws will not only help reduce the number of smokers in our City, but also save lives.”

The minimum price hike will go into effect on June 1, 2018 while the ban on pharmacies selling tobacco is scheduled for January 1, 2019, according to the New York Daily News.