The Los Angeles City Council is poised to snuff out smokeless tobacco products from sports venues throughout the city.
In a 14-0 vote Tuesday, the council approved a motion banning chewing tobacco from all amateur and professional sports venues, including Dodger Stadium. The item, which was introduced by Councilman Jose Huizar, will return for a final vote within the next 30 days and would take effect in January.
“Today, the city of Los Angeles joins the ranks of San Francisco and Boston in what is becoming a national effort to knock tobacco out of the park,” Huizar said in a statement. “Smokeless tobacco use in the great American pastime is way past its time. The time to act is now to save others, particularly our young people, from an extremely addictive and potentially deadly product.”
The prevalence of chewing tobacco in professional sports is both longstanding and well documented. But that prevalence also extends into other sports. A recent report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, for instance, concludes that high school athletes use chewing tobacco or snuff products at two times the rate of their non-athletic peers.
San Francisco became the first city to implement a sports venue ban on smokeless tobacco earlier this year. And on Wednesday, just one day after the Los Angeles City Council’s vote, the City of Boston passed a ban of its own.
Read more about Tuesday’s vote here.
Image Credit: Flickr User davidwilson1949 https://flic.kr/p/phxQNd via (CC BY 2.0)