Council votes to ban sale of flavored tobacco products

NEW YORK -- The City Council voted overwhelmingly today to ban sales of all flavored tobacco products.
The bill bars the sale of products such as strawberry- and blueberry-flavored cigars and chewing tobacco, which health experts say are a blatant attempt to hook young people on a dangerous product.
Staten Island councilmen James Oddo (R-Mid-Island/Brooklyn), Vincent Ignizio (R-South Shore) and Ken Mitchell (D-North Shore) voted in favor of the bill.
In a law enacted this June, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned manufacturing, importing, marketing and distribution of cigarettes made to taste like candy, fruit and cloves. But since the legal definition of a cigarette is vague, manufacturers have found a way to circumvent the ban with products every bit as attractive to kids, like smaller "cigarillos" and SNUS, pouches of flavored tobacco used like snuff.
Mayor Bloomberg is expected to sign the bill into law.