Baseball players may soon have to become real Skoal bandits if they want to keep chewing tobacco at the city’s ballparks — as Mayor Bill de Blasio moved Thursday to ban tobacco from public places such as stadiums.
The senior counsel for tobacco control for the Health Department told a City Council hearing that the anti-tobacco measures were a “common sense” method to cut the use of smokeless tobacco, especially by the young.
Among the five new anti-tobacco measures are also one that would stop new hookah bars from opening.
Similar prohibitions have passed in San Francisco, Boston and Los Angeles.
Under the bill, chewing tobacco and other tobacco products would be banned at any ticketed stadium event — and that includes players.
Currently, ballplayers and spectators alike are permitted to chew in city arenas. Both the Yankees and Mets have said they support the ban.
The city Health Department also came out in support of bills that would ban the sale of hookah tobacco — or shisha — at stores, with a few exceptions.
The department also wants to forbid hookah nights in restaurants and allow only already-existing shisha joints to stay open if they register with the city and meet certain criteria.