Now that he’s nearly robbed New Yorkers of their comically large sugary beverages, is “Nanny Mike’s next target” our beloved alcohol? The New York Post seems to think so! The paper reports that Mayor Bloomberg has set his sights on an alcohol abuse crackdown, based on the city Health Department’s plan to conduct a telephone survey about young people’s drinking habits. However, the city insists that this is merely an effort to improve its public education efforts, not the second coming of prohibition.
The city’s annual survey contains some questions about drinking and drug use, but the department is also developing a 50-question survey focused entirely on excessive drinking. A Health Department spokesman pointed out that they “routinely conduct surveys about important health issues to learn more about them,” and there’s other evidence that Mayor Bloomberg isn’t fixated on our collective drinking problem. It was already reported in January that alcohol was Bloomberg’s next health target, and he quickly insisted that he has no plans to further restrict our access to alcohol. Surely he’ll be able to find some other public health problem to go after next, like how we sit too close to the TV and never get enough sleep.
