To protect the city's health, youth advocates from the Tobacco Use Reduction Force (TURF), a project of the Youth Leadership Institute (YLI), propose new legislation to minimize the harmful effects of exposure to tobacco retail establishments.
Tobacco use is the most preventable cause of death in San Francisco. It costs the city approximately $500 million a year, the equivalent of sending all the city’s 2010 high school graduates to private colleges, two times. The risk of tobacco-related disease and death increases the more tobacco retailers there are in that neighborhood. Low-income communities in San Francisco, especially those with large populations of color and youth, are saturated with tobacco retail outlets. The TURF proposal will reduce the serious disparity in tobacco exposure, easing the impact on vulnerable communities.
TURF seeks to reduce the number of tobacco retailers in the city over time through attrition. We're promoting legislation that would limit new tobacco retail permits in neighborhoods already saturated with places to buy tobacco, and require any new permit holders to maintain certain distance from schools and other tobacco retailers.
You can learn more and follow our progress on Twitter (
http://twitter.com/#!/turfsf) and Facebook (
www.facebook.com/TURFSF). Or contact Catherine-Mercedes Judge at (415) 836-9160 x245 OR
cmjudge@yli.org.
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