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Pol proposes park smoking sections – Metro US

Pol proposes park smoking sections

A Queens city councilman wants to blow smoke on Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed cigarette ban in parks, beaches and plazas.

Peter Vallone Jr. introduced a bill yesterday to create “smoking sections” equal to 20 percent of any park larger than two acres.

He would nix the pedestrian plaza ban: “I’m not sure anyone even knows where a plaza ends and a sidewalk begins.”

Vallone — a self avowed “health nut” who pointed out that his father, former City Council Speaker Peter Vallone Sr. push­ed the city’s first restaurant smoking restrictions — backs the indoor bans but hopes for compromise in the fresh air.

“Smoking sections indoors didn’t work,” he said. “They were like having a urinating section in a pool.”

City Councilwoman Gale Brewer, the ban’s sponsor, is looking forward to today’s debate on Vallone’s plan. She said she hoped a ban would not be enforced through punishment, but by New Yorkers reminding smokers it’s not allowed.

“I don’t want anybody to get a ticket,” she whispered into her cell phone from City Council chambers … admitting cell phones calls are banned there.

“There are other outdoor places where people can smoke without setting an unhealthy example for the children around them,” said Susan Craig, a Health Department spokeswoman.