New York City Cancer Survivors Travel to City Hall and Urge Legislators to Make Cancer a Priority

NEW YORK, NY – MAY 24, 2017 – Cancer survivors and caregivers from across New York City traveled to city hall today to meet with lawmakers about the need to increase the price of tobacco products and reduce access.

In New York City, 39,000 people are expected to be diagnosed with cancer this year, and 12,000 will die from the disease. Those gathered at city hall called on city lawmakers to change this by taking steps to make the fight against cancer a priority. The visit was part of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) Day at the City Hall event.

“As a lung cancer survivor, I let my council member know if we’re going to eliminate cancer as a major health problem in New York City, this goal must be top of mind for our city council,” said Annette Spellen of Brooklyn. “By making these tobacco issues a priority, we could ensure progress continues to reduce suffering and death from this disease.”

Specifically, the volunteers asked the city council to pass legislation that would:

• Establish a cap on licensed tobacco retail outlets (Intro 1547-A-2017);
• Increase the minimum price of tobacco and establish a tax on non-cigarette tobacco products Intro 1544-2017);
• Restrict tobacco sales in pharmacies (Intro 1131-A-2016).

Volunteers reminded their council members that in April ACS CAN released its Oversaturated NYC report. This study alerted New Yorkers that as of October 1, 2016 there were 8,992 licensed tobacco retail outlets citywide. To illustrate this fact the report pointed out that the number of licensed tobacco retail outlets citywide is three times more than the total number of the top 10 corporate chain stores combined (2,984), three and a half times more than the number of pizzerias (approximately 2,500), three times more than the number of public, private, charter, and parochial schools (approximately 2,619) and 29 times more than the number of Starbucks (307) in New York City.

Volunteers also delivered more than 5,000 signed petitions to Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito asking her to schedule a vote on three crucial pieces of tobacco related legislation. The legislation would work to address the proliferation of tobacco outlets in the city as well as implement measures to help prevent New Yorkers from ever picking up a deadly tobacco addition.

“We met with our elected leaders today as representatives of each one of the 39,000 New York City residents who are estimated to be diagnosed with cancer this year,” said Jim Pistilli of Staten Island. “The city council must commit to protecting our city from the health impacts of tobacco so we can reduce suffering and death from this disease.”