Mayor Walsh Moves to Ban Chewing Tobacco at All Boston Ballparks

By FRANK O’LAUGHLIN (Patch Staff)

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh wants to impose a ban on the use of chewing tobacco and snuff at not only Fenway Park, but all baseball fields across the city. The mayor is hoping to create healthier atmospheres for the city’s ballplayers.

Walsh joined health officials, advocates, local youth and former Red Sox player Curt Schilling to announce that he will take steps to prohibit the use of smokeless tobacco and other tobacco products Wednesday morning.

“Our baseball parks are places for creating healthy futures, and this ordinance is about doing the right thing as a community for our young people,” Walsh said in a statement. “The consequences of smokeless tobacco are real, and we must do all that we can to set an example.”

Walsh is expected to file to the ordinance with the City Council on Monday. The ordinance would prohibit the use of all smokeless tobacco products including snuff, chewing tobacco, dipping tobacco and dissolvable tobacco.

“I am in support of banning any kind of tobacco at Fenway Park or in any public location,” said Schilling. “I have seen cancer take the lives of people very important to me like my father, a lifelong smoker, and I have endured the insufferable agony of radiation to the head/neck. If this law stops just one child from starting, it’s worth the price. Because that child could be yours, or mine.”

The National Cancer Institute states that chewing tobacco and snuff contain 28 cancer-causing agents and the U.S. National Toxicology Program has established smokeless tobacco as a “known human carcinogen.”

If the proposal receives approval, professional, college, high school and amateur players would be prevented from using the products. Sports include baseball, softball, football, basketball, hockey, track and field, field hockey, lacrosse and soccer.

Violators would be subject to a fine of $250, according to the Mayor’s office. Following enactment of the proposed ordinance, the prohibitions and requirements will become effective on April 1, 2016.