Back to the New York Mets Newsfeed

Mayor de Blasio wants to ban chewing tobacco from baseball

Metro

De Blasio after throwing out the first pitch at a Mets game in March, 2014.

Baseball players may soon have to become real Skoal bandits if they want to keep chewing tobacco at the city’s ballparks — as Mayor 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.