But smoking rights groups have made no secret of their horror at the latest moves, equating it with a loss of individual freedom being imposed from above.
“The American public is not asking for this. It is coming from government and non-government groups and it is attacking basic rights of freedom,” said Maryetta Ables, president of Forces International, a conservative group that campaigns on issues of personal freedom in smoking, eating and other consumer choices.
But Ables admitted that the climate in the US seemed to indicate that her group was fighting a losing battle.
“There is going to be more of this sort of thing to come,” she said.
That did not seem to bother Paul Collins, 39, another smoker lighting up in Madison Square park as he recovered from the stresses of his morning commute into the city.
“If they do it, they do it,” he said with an air of resignation. “The smoking ban in bars was actually good for me. I cut down a bit. So I don’t really mind.”
That is not the fighting spirit among smokers that the Marlboro Man was meant to encourage.
But then the Marlboro Man is perhaps not the best smoking symbol anymore. Several of the cowboys used as models in the campaign contracted lung cancer and became anti-smoking campaigners.
Draconian measures elsewhere
• New York banned smoking in most restaurants in 1995, followed by workplaces and indoor public places in 2003, three years before such bans in Scotland and four years before England and Wales. However, the Department of Health in England said on Tuesday that it had no plans to extend smoke-free areas, saying such moves were up to local authorities.
• Smoking was banned on Sydney’s Bondi Beach in 2004 after similar prohibitions on dogs, ball games and frisbees. Soon after, the council restricted alcohol consumption on the beach.
• Amsterdam’s coffee shops, where marijuana is often available, were not exempted from a ban on smoking in public places. Pure cannabis or cannabis resin can be legally smoked — as long as it is not mixed with tobacco.
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