by KYW's Mike Dunn
Three years after banning smoking in Philadelphia, city council will now look at the related question of whether to ban smokeless tobacco.
City councilman Jim Kenney is proposing an outright ban in Philadelphia on all smokeless tobaccos, including snuff, chewing tobacco and dipping tobacco:
"With the popularity of baseball and a lot of other sports, our kids are putting this stuff in their cheeks, and creating a lot of the same problems if they were smoking cigarettes, and additional problems relative to their gum and teeth health."
Kenney's plan would ban all smokeless tobacco sales, not just sales to minors, because he says the industry has spent its time targeting these products at teens.
The idea will be debated in a council committee when the lawmakers reconvene after their summer recess.