NEW YORK, USA — ANTI-SMOKING advocates and health experts hailed proposals from Mayor Michael Bloomberg that would keep cigarettes out of sight in New York City stores, while tobacco companies and smokers called it an overreach.

The ban, which would be the only one of its kind currently in the US, is aimed at discouraging young people from smoking.

Keeping cigarettes under wraps could help, anti-smoking advocates say, citing studies that link exposure to smoking with starting it. Shops from corner stores to supermarkets would have to keep tobacco products in cabinets, drawers, under the counter, behind a curtain or in other concealed spots. Officials also want to stop shops from taking cigarette coupons and honouring discounts, and are proposing a minimum price for cigarettes, though it’s below the going rate in much of the city now.

While some of the research focuses on cigarette advertising, an English study of 11-to-15-year-olds, published last month in the journal Tobacco Control, found that simply noticing tobacco products on display every time a youth visited a shop raised the odds he or she would at least try smoking by threefold, compared with peers who never noticed the products.

“What’s exciting about this (New York City proposal) is that this is the most comprehensive set of tobacco-control regulations that affect stores or the retail outlets,” said Kurt Ribisl, a professor of public health and cancer prevention specialist at the University of North Carolina. Moreover, cigarettes’ visibility can trigger impulse buys by smokers who are trying to quit, he and city officials say.

The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the American Lung Association, other anti-smoking groups and several City Council members applauded Bloomberg’s announcement, made at a Queens hospital on Monday. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who largely controls what goes to a vote, said through her office that she “supports the goal of these bills”, but noted they would get a full review.

The ban on displaying cigarettes follows similar laws in Iceland, Canada, England, and Ireland, but it would be the only such measure in the US at the moment.

A suburban New York village, Haverstraw, passed such a display ban last April, but rescinded it four months later, saying it wanted to end a potentially pricey lawsuit brought by tobacco companies and convenience stores. The cigarette companies and stores argued the measure violated commercial free speech rights, saying that a store display “conveys a message from the retailer to consumers that the product is for sale”.

Like the Haverstraw effort, the New York City proposal aims to discourage young people from smoking.

“Such displays suggest that smoking is a normal activity,” Bloomberg said. “And they invite young people to experiment with tobacco.”

But smokers and cigarette sellers said the measure was overreaching.

“I don’t disagree that smoking itself is risky, but it’s a legal product,” said Audrey Silk, who’s affiliated with a smokers’ rights group that has sued the city over previous regulations. “Tobacco’s been normal for centuries. … It’s what he’s doing that’s not normal.”

Slated to be introduced to the City Council on Wednesday, the anti-smoking proposal was also a sign that a mayor who has built a reputation as a public health crusader isn’t backing off after a high-profile setback last week, when a judge struck down the city’s novel effort to ban supersized, sugary drinks. The city is appealing that decision.

Bloomberg, a billionaire who also has given US$600 million of his own money to anti-smoking efforts around the world, began taking on tobacco use shortly after he became mayor in 2002. Adult smoking rates have since fallen by nearly a third — from 21.5 per cent in 2002 to 14.8 per cent in 2011, Health Commissioner Dr Thomas Farley said.

But the youth rate has remained flat, at 8.5 per cent, since 2007. Some 28,000 city public high school students tried smoking for the first time in 2011, city officials say.

Measures in other countries have been coupled with bars on in-store advertising, but those nations have different legal standards around advertising and free speech. The New York proposal would still allow shops to display cigarette advertising and signs saying tobacco products were sold, raising the question of how effective it will be just to put the products under wraps.

But convenience store owners fear it could affect their business, by potentially leaving customers uncertain whether the shop carries their favourite brand and making them wait while a proprietor digs out a pack, said Jeff Lenard, a spokesman for the National Association of Convenience stores.

“It slows down the transaction, and our name is convenience Stores,” he said.

Jay Kim, who owns a Manhattan deli on 34th Street, saw the proposal as a bid to net fines.

“I know the city wants to collect money,” he said at his store, where packs of cigarettes can be seen behind the counter, along with numerous signs warning of the dangers of smoking and prohibiting sales to minors.

Bloomberg, for his part, emphasised that collecting money was “not the reason”.

The displays would be checked as part of the shops’ normal city inspections; information on the potential penalties wasn’t immediately available. Repeated violations of some of the other provisions, including the minimum price and coupon ban, could get a store shuttered.

— AP