By Bill Parry
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.
MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz said the agency uses revenue from these ads, $7.5 million in 2014, to fund services for customers.
“The MTA prohibits fixed ads for alcohol advertisements within at least 500 feet of schools, playgrounds and places of worship,” Ortiz said. “We don’t allow ads that promote unlawful or illegal activities, including alcohol ads that encourage underage drinking.”
BAFFT members disagree. They say studies show African-American and Latino neighborhoods are disproportionately exposed to alcohol ads.
“The alcohol advertising on NYC public transit has unjustly affected communities of color, especially in the Bronx,” Kylie Cortez, a youth leader with the Forward South Bronx Colition, said. “Our young people deserve healthy public transportation, not to be targeted and tempted into drinking underage.”
Dromm said the MTA removed tobacco ads in the ‘90s to protect health.
“They also forbid other categories of ads in order to protect children, so why don’t they do the same for alcohol ads?” Dromm asked. “Boston and other cities around the country have already taken this measure.”
Faith leaders from the Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities also added the perspectives of their traditions.
Chris McKay, Youth Minister from the Bronx Church of God Prophesy, said, “We don’t stop until we’ve passed this resolution, and gotten the MTA to remove these alcohol ads. This summer is just the beginning.”
Reach reporter Bill Parry by e-mail at bparr
