Coalition demands ban on alcohol ads in transit system

More than 50 community advocates, faith leaders and schoolchildren joined City Councilman Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights) on the steps of City Hall last week to call for a ban on alcohol advertising from public transit. Members of the Building Alcohol Ad-Free Transit, or BAAFT, kicked off a citywide awareness campaign June 29 saying buses and subways function as the yellow school bus for the city’s youth and it is wrong for them to be targeted by MTA-facilitated alcohol advertising.

“A subway car or station is no place for alcohol advertisem­ents,” Dromm said. “Too often these ads are placed side by side with ads for video games and animated movies. This practice is wrongheaded and may encourage underage drinking, putting our children’s health and safety in jeopardy.”

Dromm has sponsored a City Council resolution calling on the MTA to remove alcohol advertising from the city’s public transit system. That resolution currently has 12 co-sponsors, including Councilman Costa Constantinides (D-Astoria).

Dromm spoke of the problems of underage drinking, pointing out that such drinking is not a harmless rite of passage, but can cause irreversible brain damage.

Read more: http://www.timesledger.com/stories/2016/28/alcoholads_2016_07_08_q.html